Six Feet Of Papa
Dorothy Loudon at the Blue Angel
With The Norman Paris Trio
Coral Records CRL 757265
1959
Loudon vocal style was to mix song with ad-libbed comedy bits.
Loudon won The 1977 Tony Award for Best Leading Actress in a Musical for her performance on Annie as the evil orphanage administrator Miss Hannigan.
She married Norman Paris. Paris wrote the theme song for the television game show "I've Got A Secret".
From the back cover: For years, men on horseback, tape recorder in hand, have been riding the byways of this great country, setting down what they thought were the songs of America as sung by the voice of America. Now, in a world beset by one modern inconvenience after another, we at last have something useful on the subject-the true songs of America, collected within the compass of one handy al- bum and sung to the hilt by Dorothy Loudon, prize canary of one of New York's prize night clubs, the Blue Angel, and a girl who might well be considered the voice of America. For she is not just a canary; she is also a mocking bird-in between long melodic lines of pure (and impure) Dorothy Loudon, there are finely chopped intimations of Al Jolson, Ted Lewis, a Northern spy in Southern belle's clothing, a couple of saxophones, red-hot mammas in high, progressive jazz singers in the clouds, and girl ballad singers in extremis. She sings songs from the great Southland, from the great Westland, from the great wasteland that (heaven help us!) lies between Tin Pan Alley and Broadway, songs by such famous wits as Cole Porter and Johnny Mercer and Bobby Troup, songs by such lesser known but very bright wits as Caroline Leigh and Micheal Brown and Bud McCreery. If, after hearing them sung (or thrashed to within an inch of their little lives), you decide that you too want a Dorothy Loudon in your home, the formula is simple-one part guncotton, two parts steam calliope, one part quiet desperation, one part manic depression, a dash of bitters, a cupful of spirits of ammonia, and a quart jar of tabasco. The management makes but one request – that, for the safety of all, you stir the mixture in a sealed vault. Add to this the glad and sardonic music of the Norman Paris Trio, which has known her since she was a girl (that's what she was – a girl), and you have the makings of one of your happiest hours on earth. – ROGERS WHITAKER New Yorker Magazine
During the centuries I lived in New York it was difficult to lure me into a night trap four times a year. But for the last week I seem not to be able to avoid a joint called the Blue Angel, which houses a singing lady with whom I am in love. Her name is Dorothy Loudon and if this ain't talent then I am cheating on my other loves in vain.
I am nearly certain that Miss Loudon, who blows her bangs out of her blue eyes with a kind of updraft from her lower lip, will never really be popular down South because she has done a disastrous disservice to both Louisiana and Alabama – "The cookin' is greasy in old Louisiana with that shortnin', they never miss a trick. Mammy's little baby is sick."
For a gal who was born and raised up in such places as Boston and Claremont, N. H., and whose papa was an All-America basketball player at Dartmouth, and who lived a lot of her life in Indianapolis, Dorothy Lou- don has the best Southern accent I ever heard and owns some gestures to match. Especially when she sings:
"And the cornbread, well, half the time it's born dead and that gravy's a lovely shade of blue... all the chicken is fried in Looziana- I don't blame it – if I lived there, I'd be fried, too."
I will not dare to convey to paper the things this girl does to a place called Mobile, which is somewhat near my heart. (I spent a little time there during the war trying to sew the bottom on a boat on which I was sup- posed to have some mild duties.)
Dorothy sings "Mobile" kind of straight out of the song book. But when she hits a line which says something about the swallows building their nest –"and I guess they knew best" – and makes a visible effort to restrain herself from nausea when she chirps "and they called it Mobile," several Southern gentlemen in the audience moult their mustaches. As a Carolina boy that some folks call Beauregard, I went right out, honey, and amputated mah goatee.
Strangest thing about this young brown-haired, bright-eyed girl is a kind of rubber face she came by accidentally. She was good enough to play a piano and sing straight. Then she got good enough for somebody to play a piano behind her and for her to sing without working her fingers. And then all of a sudden she fell into fun-and forgot a repertoire of 1500 songs her parents had taught her.
It is difficult to describe the lady's humor, but it is the rare thing we used to see with Florence Desmond at her best, and there is a kind of humorous fatigue that Chaplin used to employ when the whole situation got too big for him.
I am afraid I am terribly smitten with Miss Loudon, of whom you will hear considerably more as time encroaches, and I am not ashamed. – ROBERT C. RUARK United Features Syndicate
Red Hot Mama (Interpolation: Some Day My Prince Will Come)
Most Gentlemen Don't Like Love
Lousiana
South Rampart Street Parade
I Like A Hungry Man
WestPort
Six Feet Of Papa
Supper On The Table
You Gotta See Your Mama
Great Day
Jamboree Jones
Dixie Medley
Bei Mir Bist Du Schön
