Vinyl Word: The New First Family, 1968

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on July 28th, 2006


John Byner, David Frye (identified here as “Dave”Frye) and Will Jordan are among the perpetrators of this Bob Booker & George Foster-produced album. It was recorded on the Verve label in New York City’s Columbia Recording Studios on October 18, 1966, and is billed as a “futuristic fairy tale that takes place in a mythical country called ‘The United States of America’,” which “all begins in 1968.”

The cover art, many of you Mad Magazine fans over the age of 40 may notice, is by Mort Drucker. Groucho Marx, oddly enough, looks more like Anwar Sadat.

One more oddity: The last celebrity impersonated on the album, in a 5:15 piece called “The State Dinner,” (one of many on the album by Byner) is none other than Jackie Mason. Not only was Mason hot as a comedian in 1966, he was enough of an icon (and a vocal oddity) that he was impersonated by fellow comedians on an album that included vocal impressions of Louis Armstrong, John Wayne, Richard Nixon and Bill Buckley.

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