Decades before Lisa Kudrow's Phoebe Buffay on #Friends brought a dark, twisted sensibility to folk- and folk-style music, Dolan Ellis loosed this delightful parody of folk music on the world -- and it all sounds like it could have been the inspiration for the fictional Buffay's musical efforts. More subtle and less obvious than Allan Sherman's work in that vein, most of it could actually pass muster with folk audiences of the time -- until one listened really closely to the lyrics. The music was the work of Leon Pober and the lyrics by Bud Freeman (aka John M. Freeman, not jazz saxman Lawrence Bud Freeman), who had previously brought the world Songs of Couch and Consultation by Katie Lee. Dolan Ellis, who was to emerge as a star member of the New Christy Minstrels a little while later, acquits himself well here -- he sings and plays it all straight, which is essential to the humor of the parodies of calypso, work songs, medieval ballads, western ballads, and other standard forms of the folk genre skewered on this album. Ellis has a rich, pleasant, voice, and a quietly beguiling sense of humor, which would serve him well in the Christys. The album is also credited to "the Inn Group," who came to comprise part of the original New Christy Minstrels -- they're otherwise unnamed, but in tandem with Perry Botkin, Jr. and Mutt Cohen the Unicorn Eight, they all sound as though they're having fun, and it's infectious enough to carry the listener along. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

1		Overlin River
2		Solitaire
3		Dat Man Is My Daddy
4		Sir Richard
5		Sick In De Stomach
6		Joe Bean
7		Caribe Baby
8		General Otis McGill
9		Jamie O
10		Hurrange A Dang
11		Lute, Flute, Bass Piccolo and Harmonium
12		Astigmata