Elsa Lanchester-Bawdy Cockney Songs

This was 25 cents less 20%.  If my math holds up, I believe this makes it an even $0.20.  I bought it as I used to like actress records as well as bawdy cockney songs.  However, I have been greatly disappointed with the bawdiness of the material I find.  I find it mostly tame.  Furthermore, I had listened to this album and prepped the songs for this some months back, only to shelve it I felt the month I had it slated for needed more bang.  This month, however, I felt that I wanted to lessen my burden of listening to albums by including one I have already been through.  Thus, here we are.

Elsa Lanchester, born in London in 1902, worked on the British stage before meeting her future husband, Charles Laughton.

From there, she made the leap to film.  Playing notable smaller roles in some important films on both sides of the ocean, the role for which she is most famous is that of The Bride of Frankenstein. She would die in the Los Angeles area in 1986 from pneumonia.  

But back to Lanchester’s origin, her career began in night clubs and cabaret’s where she sang song similar to the style presented here. During this time, she made several 78’s of her material including “Please Sell No More Drink to My Father” in 1926 (also included on this album).  After she was established as an actress, she made several albums in the 1950’s.  These albums all featured tawdry songs with vague lewdness and double entendres, which were wildly popular in an age of censorship and repression (double entendres, that is.  Not sure how successful these records were).  

This album, from Tradition records, was released in 1968.  I believe it consists of materiel from the albums above.  Lanchester is accompanied by pianist Ray Henderson.  Songs such as “The Husband’s Clock”, “Rat Catcher’s Daughter”, and “Lola’s Saucepan” do not really hide the subject for which they are skirting around.

Well, I decided to take the high road and go with “Please Sell No More Drink To My Father”, one of the early cabaret songs of Lanchester.

Overall, I felt this album was pretty weak and not really bawdy enough for my liking.  Or perhaps, the double entendres is a lost art. Anyway, meh.

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