I've been going back and filling in some of the many gaps in my cultural education. One of the performers on my to-see list was the recently departed Mort Sahl, possibly the most influential political humorist of the 20th century.
I asked my friend, Brian Phillips, to put together a playlist. Here are his recommendations and annotations. History buffs and political junkies will particularly want to check out the last clip for its 1967 view of RFK:
Start with Mort Sahl at Sunset. He disliked the LP because they sped his voice up to fit the full act on the LP, but the material is solid. It is his earliest recording, but it was issued AFTER his first for Verve:
If you don't want to hear him talk about politics and you want to see a picture of Joan Collins you haven't seen before there is "On Relationships"
His Verve stuff is all good, here is his first:
He had a show on Monitor TV, a failed cable channel of the Christian Science Monitor. All the shows are good. Look who the guest THIS week was, though!
Even though this was cut for the up-and-down in quality GNP Crescendo label, this is nice mid-period Sahl:
The, "But why was he considered funny?" clip to show neophytes:
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