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THE BEST OF SHEL SILVERSTEIN: HIS WORDS HIS SONGS HIS FRIENDS CD to be released 8/2/05
Added: (Thu Jul 28 2005)
Anyone who has ever been touched by the special magic of Shel Silverstein – by way of his hundreds of poems and stories, songs, books, cartoons, stage plays, and more than a dozen albums under his own name (on nearly as many record labels, since 1959) will be tickled and pickled by THE BEST OF SHEL SILVERSTEIN: HIS WORDS HIS SONGS HIS FRIENDS, a newly-compiled tribute by and for Uncle Shelby that will arrive in stores August 2nd on Columbia/Legacy, a division of SONY BMG MUSIC ENTERTAINMENT.
The collection builds on the excitement created this year by the success of Runny Babbit: A Billy Sook, the first posthumously released literary work by Shel Silverstein (1930-1999). The book, in which Runny and his friends Toe Jurtle, Skertie Gunk, Rirt Dat, Dungry Hog, Snerry Jake and other speak a curious language of their own, was the #1-selling children’s book in the country this past spring, and remains among the top 500 best-selling books as listed by Amazon. The spoken word CD version will be released by HarperAudio on September 20th – 5 days before the 75th anniversary of its author’s birth.
It has been two decades since Shel Silverstein reunited with Columbia to record his two classic Columbia spoken word albums, 1984’s Grammy Award-winning Where The Sidewalk Ends (which commemorated the 10th anniversary of that book’s publication in 1974), followed by 1985’s A Light In The Attic – neither of which has been out of print for one day since its release. (Where The Sidewalk Ends was reissued in October 2000, as an expanded edition that upped its original 36 poems with 11 previously unreleased readings by Shel.)
The 26 tracks included on THE BEST OF SHEL SILVERSTEIN intersperse a dozen of Shel’s recordings of his poems from those two discs with 14 musical tracks that he wrote or co-wrote. The 14 songs – highlighted by “The Unicorn” by the Irish Rovers, “A Boy Named Sue” by Johnny Cash, “Sylvia's Mother” and “Cover Of The Rolling Stone” by Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show, “The Taker” by Kris Kristofferson, “Marie Lavaux” and “Daddy What If” by Bobby Bare, “A Couple More Years” by Willie Nelson, and 4 titles by Shel himself – have never been assembled in one volume before. Compilation producers Didier C. Deutsch and Darcy M. Proper (who also served as mastering engineer) also include both sides of the rare 1971 non-LP single, “A Front Row To Hear Ole Johnny Sing” b/w “26 Second Song” for the first time on any album.
As pointed out in the newly commissioned liner notes essay written by Mitch Myers, the journalist and NPR commentator from Shel’s hometown of Chicago, the multi-talented artist had already been writing songs and recording albums under his own name for a decade when the general public heard his first hit tune in 1968, the Irish Rovers’ version of “The Unicorn.” The convergence of “The Unicorn” followed a year later by Johnny Cash’s “A Boy Named Sue” forever engrained Shel Silverstein’s name in the pop music pantheon. (“A Boy Named Sue,” the only RIAA gold-selling single of Cash’s 50-year career, was also his highest-charting Hot 100 pop single, staying at #2 for 3 weeks, behind the Rolling Stones’ “Honky Tonk Women.”)
In the folk music world, however, fine-print readers had seen Shel’s name attached to songs dating back to the beginning of the ‘folk boom’ in the late-’50s through the early-’60s, by the Brothers Four, Judy Collins, Bob Gibson, Judy Henske, the Chad Mitchell Trio, the Modern Folk Quartet, the New Christy Minstrels, Gram Parsons, the Serendipity Singers, the Smothers Brothers, and many others, even Burl Ives and the Weavers. “The First Battalion,” “In the Hills Of Shiloh,” “Beans Taste Fine,” and “Hey, Nelly Nelly” were widely-covered folk staples for years.
It was during the ‘folk boom’ years when Shel’s career as a best-selling author began, with the 1963 publication of Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back on Harper & Row (today Harper-Collins). It was followed by A Giraffe And A Half, Who Wants a Cheap Rhinoceros, and The Giving Tree (all in 1964).
Living and working in both Chicago and Greenwich Village, Shel expanded his base to Nashville in the mid-’60s, where he became both a collaborator and mentor to an entire generation of singer-songwriters – starting with Kris Kristofferson (who was only four years younger). Among many other C&W artists, THE BEST OF SHEL SILVERSTEIN reflects his close friendships with Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Bobby Bare – whose 1973 LP, Bobby Bare Sings Lullabys, Legends and Lies, was the first of several albums by Bare, Tompall Glaser, Fred Koller, and others entirely comprised of Shel compositions.
In early 1972, Shel’s audience grew exponentially once again, when Dr. Hook & The Medicine Show scored a top 5 RIAA gold hit with “Sylvia’s Mother” from their self-titled debut LP on Columbia, which was comprised almost entirely of Shel compositions. History repeated itself less than a year later with the success of “Cover Of The Rolling Stone,” the first chart hit from Dr. Hook’s next LP, Sloppy Seconds, whose 12 songs were all written by Shel.
“Freakin’ At The Freakers’ Ball,” the opening song on the latter album, also showed up on side one as the title tune of Shel’s one and only Columbia music LP, which was issued in 1972 at the height of Dr. Hookmania. Two years later, Shel returned to publishing with Where The Sidewalk Ends, as his work began to be compared to the best of Dr. Seuss and Edward Lear. The Missing Piece followed in 1976, and its sequel The Missing Piece Meets the Big O came in 1981, the same year as A Light In the Attic, which would be his last book for 15 years. Shel’s recording of Where The Sidewalk Ends was released by Columbia in 1984, followed a year later by his recording of A Light In the Attic, the final recording of his career.
Through the ’80s, Shel turned his attention to the theatrical stage (1981’s Lady Or The Tiger Show, and Wild Life, a collection of his early plays) and film (Things Change, co-written with David Mamet, 1988). His long-awaited return to print, Falling Up (1996) reestablished him as a hero to children and adults, but it would be his final book. Shel Silverstein, who was born in Chicago on September 25, 1930, died at his home in Key West on May 10, 1999.
“Recording audio versions of his world famous poetry books,” Myers concludes, “Shel drew on his seasoned performance persona and exaggerated all of the playful and rebellious wisdom in his roughhewn voice. His work spoke to people of all ages and he was never condescending when dealing with children. Shel threw himself completely into his work – he did it for his words, he did it for his songs, and he did it for his friends. He also did it for you.”