In the 7th Grade, a classmate of mine named Danny discovered, The Marx Brothers. He had a big book called “Why A Duck” which essentially is a a few Marx Brothers movies presented in comic book format using stills from the films above the typed out dialogue. It didn’t take me long to be hooked on the Marx Brothers as well. Danny was all about Harpo. I gravitated towards Groucho and another very funny friend of ours named Gary took on the role of Chico. We’d act out scenes from the movies [as portrayed by the book] and disrupt classes in a very Marx Brothers manner. I feel sorry for my English teacher. A large part of that class seemed to be students acting out scenes from Shakespeare or Huckleberry Finn and I had always felt that instead of simply playing Montague, I had to play Groucho playing Montague with the funny walk and frequent trips to the edge of entendre.
How do The Marx Brothers impact my musical evolution, I hear you ask? Well, my 7th grade home room teacher also happened to be a fan of the Marx Brothers and he let me borrow his 4 record set called Three Hours, Fifty Nine Minutes..Fifty One Seconds With The Marx Brothers. The record is a collection of old radio broadcasts featuring the brothers doing comedic bit as well as several musical numbers. While I don’t think that an individual song from this record or any of the Marx Brothers films stand out as a favorite, I feel compelled to include them because I really liked the flavor of the era. There is something that really grabs me about the entertainment of the 1930’s and 1940’s. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of any recordings I have that focus on that time period apart from this.
Being from the age of Vaudeville, the Marx Brothers had reasonable musical skills to go with their comedic presence.
Harpo From Animal Crackers
Lydia The Tattoed Lady
Chico Play Piano