Moms and Phyllis: Comedy Vinyl Album Review

Before the 100-degree temps of the heat dome, I promised to do a blog a week reviewing two comedy vinyl albums from my collection.

What an ambitious task in mind-numbing swelter. Also, I hadn’t counted on hate, hate, hating the Phyllis Diller album, “Born to Sing” (1968). Confession: I actually gave the album away a few years ago. I detested it that much. After another listen on YouTube, I am still disgusted, but I now appreciate her talent and drive.

The Moms Mabley album “I got something to tell you!” (1963) was touching but poorly produced. Sometimes, it was hard to hear her over the audience’s laughter. And yet, I got a strong sense of her timing and her reciprocated love with the audience.

In the misogyny, agism, sexism, and racism of the 1960s, these two female voices speak to each other. Listening to them both was powerful. Both women played dowdy characters. Unlike Phyllis, who joked about being ugly, Moms joked about young men being too old for her. Moms’ character was confident, despite all the racism meant to keep her in her place.

“I Got Something to Tell You” (1963)

Redd Foxx called Moms Mabley “the funniest woman in the world!” In this album, she slips easily from character work to singing political medleys about the Congo and Jim Crow.

Location: State Theater, Philadelphia

“How you like Mom's dress?” she coos. “You know, you can get some real nice things with them green stamps. You know that? Yes, you can.”

Born Loretta Mary Aiken, Jackie “Moms” Mabley toured in the Chitlin’ Circuit, a group of theaters open to black performers. By the age of 13, she had two children after being raped by an older black man and a white sheriff. In the 1920s and 1930s, she performed in men’s clothing as a “lesbian stand-up.”

She’s so good. So warm and sincere when she calls people “son.”

“I have wrote a book for my teenage children,” she says referencing audience members as her babies. “Y'all call them delinquents and everything else, but I love them. If my mom's record, they love mom, they dig mom, and mom digs them. You don't dig them because you're way back ahead of time and you ain't gonna change. And that's what's the matter with the country now, especially America. You got to change with the time. It's an atomic age, you got to have an atomic mind. Things ain't like they used to be, like a lot of old men say, well, times ain't like they used to be. I say, I'm damn glad of it. Who wants times like they used to be?”

She’s very political, mentioning a conversation she had with a leader in Congo. "You've got brother fighting and killing one another,” she tells him.

She can make you cry as well as laugh. Her final medley is tender. It ends with “Somewhere Under the Rainbow (“Where There’s No Jim Crow.)” She has amazing rhythm and elegance. She can also sing.

“Born to Sing”

(1968)

In this album, Phyllis Diller shows her exceptional musical ability while delivering the one-liners that made her famous.

Producer: David Rubinson

Phyllis can sing too, a serious pianist, who performs the entire album in song. She is hip, breathy and rhythmic, with her version of “Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones.

But then come the jokes on top of the instrumentals:

“I’m such a loser. I bought a new hat. They canceled Easter.”

“I use nail polish to cover the rust.”

“I wore a see-through dress and no one looked.”

In “I Enjoy Being a Girl,” she flirts and belts with such a deep, interesting husk of a voice. “I’m strictly a female female,” she sings in such a way she’s letting you in on inside jokes.”

Then come the jokes:

“If a thing of beauty is a joy forever, I’ve got about eight minutes.”

“If you take me at face value, I owe you money.”

Get this poison OUT of my apartment.

However, I’m glad I took a second listen. Phyllis Diller worked hard. She had six children. She loved her gay audiences and was not afraid to admit to plastic surgery, a huge taboo back then. While she joked about being a terrible cook, she was an accomplished entertainer and artist, a cultured woman much like Sophie Lennon of the Mrs. Maisel series. Additionally, she knew how to take a premise and then get rounds of jokes through one-liners.

“I became a stand-up comedian because I had a sit-down husband,” she once said of her first of two husband.