# Exploring the Great American Songbook - "Monster Mash" by Bobby "Boris" Pickett



## Frank Freaking Sinatra (Dec 6, 2018)

*Exploring the Great American Songbook - "Monster Mash" by Bobby "Boris" Pickett*

The Great American Songbook, also known as "American Standards", is the canon of the most important and influential American popular songs and jazz standards from the early 20th century.

Although several collections of music have been published under the title, it does not refer to any actual book or specific list of songs which is really great when it comes to creating threads like this by people like me, but to a loosely defined set including the most popular and enduring songs from the 1920s to the 1950s that were created for Broadway theatre, musical theatre, Hollywood musical film, the Ed Sullivan Show, and American Bandstand.

They have been recorded and performed by a large number and wide range of singers, instrumental bands, jazz musicians, and people who think that they can sing karaoke even though we all know that they really can't but still do so anyway.

The Great American Songbook comprises standards by George Gershwin, Cole Porter, and Irving Berlin, and also Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Johnny Mercer, Richard Rodgers, and others that you would be surprised to see on a list like this but that's what happens when you think that "loosely defining" something is a good idea - it's generally not.

There is no consensus on which songs are in the "Great American Songbook" which is a tremendous relief to know.

The first edition of "Exploring the Great American Songbook" is "Monster Mash" by Bobby "Boris" Pickett.

Monster Mash" is a 1962 American standard and the best-known song by Bobby "Boris" Pickett. The song was released as a single on Gary S. Paxton's Garpax Records label in August 1962 along with a full-length LP called The Original Monster Mash, which contained several other monster-themed tunes.

The "Monster Mash" single was #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart on October 20-27 of that year, just before Halloween. It has been a perennial holiday favorite ever since that Americans don't particularly care much for because is kind of gets on their nerves like 30 seconds into the opening but oddly enough it seems to be of apparently unending interest and amusement to people from Great Britain who are loveable middle-class eccentrics one and all (except for a couple of cranks in Scotland but the less said the better).

The original production -






The Beach Boys played the song live as an early staple of their live performances, and a live performance was released on their 1964 live album Beach Boys Concert with lead vocals by Mike Love.






The Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band (from guess where? - yep, Great Britain) released a version on their 1969 album Tadpoles. They also performed it on an episode of the British TV series Do Not Adjust Your Set.






*British* ska band Bad Manners covered the song for their 1980 debut album, Ska 'n' B.






Allstar Weekend remixed that song in October 8, 2011. Allstar Weekend is actually from California which like Great Britain is composed exclusively of loveable middle-class eccentrics (except for a couple of cranks in Scotts Valley but the less said the better).






I hope you enjoyed this edition of "Exploring the Great American Songbook" as much as I enjoyed creating it.

Until tomorrow... or next week... or whenever (I'm not exactly the most ambitious thread creator - I'm actually kind of lazy when I'm not completely jacked up on coffee like I am now.

Signing off -

Frank Freaking Sinatra


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