2 ALBUMS OF AUTHENTIC BURLESQUE MUSIC

This blog is now 10 years old. And amidst all the media hype, the presidential pronouncements, and the parades, one lovely maniacs actually sent me an email headed: "I love Filthy Fridays and want to give you money." Well... okay! Hadn't thought about it before, but if someone wants to click on the new PayPal button to your right, that's up to you. We all celebrate in our own ways. And this is how I celebrate: by continuing our series of weekend-starters from the mid-century Golden Age of Sleaze. 

What to read/look at whilst listening to these instrumentals? Why, take a gander at the gams on this website (makes wolf whistle): "Decedent History," a site of particular interest to those in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, but any dedicated sleaze-ologist worth his/her weight in tassels should find it fascinatingly filthy fun.

Listening to a burlesque show?! Who'd want to do that? Well, for starters, the millions who bought David Rose's bump-n-grind big band instrumental, "The Stripper," a record that went to #1 on the American charts in 1962. Which of course, lead to records released designed to cash in on Rose's success, inc. 2 albums by Rose himself, "The Stripper," and "More! More! More! of the Stripper," both of which are in print.

So yes, one of today's albums does indeed include a cover of "The Stripper," but these records weren't just cash-ins. "Bald" Bill Hagan & His Trocaderons were an actual burlesque show band that performed at Philadelphia's still extant Trocadera Theater, tho nowadays it's a concert venue. The music is mostly the kind of Dixieland jazz played as a slow grind that typifies burlesque music, but also dips into rock'n'roll ("The G-String Twist"), and psuedo-Middle Eastern belly-dance exotica ("Erotic Fantasy" is a version of that exotic antiquity "Song of India"), another common style found wherever 'torso tossers' were found strutting down 'varicose alley' (aka: the runway.) And compared to Rose's studio slickness, these fun records sound a little more raw and loose - probably closer to what it actually sounded like at joints like the "Troc".  The recording dates would seem to put these at the tail-end of the original burly-q era.

Both albums recorded from vinyl. The first one starts off a bit scratchy, during the MC intro/phony applause effects, but improves. Va-va-voom!

Bald Bill Hagan And His Trocaderons - Music To Strip By (1966)

Bald Bill Hagan And His Trocaderons - Music For A Strip Tease Party (1967)

Music To Strip By:

A1	A Pretty Girl Is Like A Melody
A2	Bumps And Grinds
A3	Frankie And Johnny
A4	G-String Twist
A5	Temptation
A6	Night Train
B1	The Stripper
B2	Party Time
B3	Bedroom Blues
B4	Second Honeymoon
B5	Girdles Aweigh
B6	My Heart Belongs To Daddy

 Music For A Strip Tease Party:

A1	I'm In The Mood For Love
A2	Stripper's Delight
A3	Erotic Fantasy
A4	C Cup Blues
A5	Vampin' And Campin'
B1	A Good Man Is Hard To Find
B2	Fascination
B3	Koochie Galore
B4	Cha Bump
B5	Makin' Whoopee