Ernie Kovacs - The Ernie Kovacs Album (1976)

"Tom Swift" by Ernie Kovacs

For Steve Allen, Tonight Starring Steve Allen was just a stepping stone to primetime and the culmination of a decade of hard work across radio and television. The reward was The Steve Allen Show, a Sunday evening variety show and NBC's challenge to CBS's top-rated The Ed Sullivan Show. With the workload for Allen's new program on top of the behemoth output required for Tonight, comedian and fellow television pioneer Ernie Kovacs signed on to share the load by hosting Tonight on Mondays and Tuesdays in 1956. Before and after his Tonight run, Kovacs was the star and creative impetus for several iterations of the skit-driven The Ernie Kovacs Show. Some of the more aural-friendly skits from The Ernie Kovacs Show are collected on The Ernie Kovacs Album released in 1976 on Columbia Records.

Ernie Kovacs seemingly never turned down an opportunity in television and, no matter the job, always found a way to play with the new medium and infuse into the work his unique brand of comedy. Dry, absurdist, satirical, irreverent, anarchic, experimental, subversive, antiestablishment aren't enough adjectives to pin down Ernie's comic energy. With his experimentation, he's more of a visual artist than his contemporaries and with his experience in radio, he's more of a an aural artist than his contemporaries. In short, where his fellow television pioneers were satisfied remaking vaudeville, Ernie Kovacs was a comic artist.

The Ernie Kovacs Album, therefore, can't help but only show half an art form. Although the experimentation is still present in some of the sound collages, the album favors character sketches and satirical bits. The most common subject of his comic criticism is television itself: both its advertising and its stodgy and already calcifying tropes and formats. Under his focus, Ernie captures the human element to get the most laughs whether through the natural or performed awkwardness that television inspires. The record is a dry delivery that multiplies the humor as the straight-faced absurdities layer upon themselves incessantly. "Tom Swift" in particular could go on forever and you really want it to because...will good ol' Tom lead his "feetsball" team (as Tom called it), down 210-to-nothing, to a comeback in the Big Game with only four seconds left to play?

Here is the discography surrounding Ernie Kovac's first album:

Hot Cakes & Sausage (1954 single with the Tony DeSimone Trio)

The Ernie Kovacs Album

The Ernie Kovacs Album (Centennial Edition) (2019 reissue)

"J. Walter Puppybreath / Albert Gridley"

The Ernie Kovacs Show

"Eugene"

"Kitchen Symphony"

Kovacs on the Corner Episode

"Hot Cakes & Sausage" by Ernie Kovacs with Tony DeSimone Trio

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Andy Williams - Andy Williams Sings Steve Allen (1956)

"Meet Me Where They Play the Blues" by Andy Williams

Three singers for Tonight Starring Steve Allen was the limit, but Kay Thompson, former radio star and former head of the vocal department at MGM, called in a favor to get her protege Andy Williams a bonus slot in the lineup. Thompson also helped cement his first recording contract with Cadence Records on which he released his debut album Andy Williams Sings Steve Allen in 1956.

Whether it was because of their personal familiarity or a favor owed, Andy Williams chose twelve Steve Allen songs to make up his first album. Allen was a prolific songwriter, if not a very good one, writing songs with others and for his show as another source of income. Steve's wit pushed the output but the bunches of material get lost in formula and the overuse of rhyming dictionaries. They lack hooks and the human touch and, at least in this selection, are void of inspiration. (A good counterpoint to Steve Allen's songwriting would be Johnny Mercer.)

The best written song on the album is "Meet Me Where They Play the Blues" and is the song best suited to Andy's tone. It fits so nicely it apparently warrants a sound-alike on Side B ("An Old Piano Plays the Blues.") Andy Williams has a unique and quality singing voice but, much like Steve Lawrence at the time, he can't help but deliver his lines through the nose, throat or top of the palate. These vocal affectations limit the types of songs he sounds natural singing, and Steve Allen's catalogue doesn't give him much to work with (even with the casual jazz orchestrations by Alvy West.)

Here is the discography surrounding Andy Williams's debut album:

You Can't Buy Happiness (1953 single)

Here Comes That Dream Again (1954 single)

Christmas Is a Feeling in Your Heart (1955 single)

Andy Williams Sings Steve Allen

"The Wind, the Sand and the Star" by Andy Williams

"Moon Over Miami" by Andy Williams

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Pat Kirby - What Is This Thing Called Love? (1957)

"What Is This Thing Called Love?" by Pat Kirby

Pat Kirby is next among the regular singers that would appear on Tonight Starring Steve Allen. With a distaste for showbiz, Kirby's career on TV and on wax was short. She released only a few singles and one album What Is This Thing Called Love? in 1957 on Decca Records.

With Tonight Starring Steve Allen having two female singers to promote the latest songs, their juxtaposition in the lineup leads to a highlight of their strengths. Where Gorme holds the listeners with her bombast, Pat Kirby does so with her precision. Her voice is clear and controlled and allows her to effortlessly navigate volume, mood and style. Like her coworker Steve Lawrence, the quieter she sings the more magical her voice, finding its height as it dips into a conversational, jazzy tone. The album starts with jazz as Kirby introduces the timeless question: What Is This Thing Called Love? The subsequent songs look for an answer but sonically turn to the traditional pop orchestral arrangements that just aren't as vital. But Pat Kirby's diamond-clear voice shines throughout and finds its exquisite home again in the concluding song "Love," a multi-faceted answer to that first question.

Here is Pat Kirby's discography:

Don't Tell Me Not to Love You (1955 single)

Wildwood (1955 single)

Don't Tell Me Not to Love You (1956 single)

I Keep a Little List (1956 single)

Somebody Somewhere (1956 single)

What Is This Thing Called Love?

Please Be Gentle with Me (1957 single)

Tammy (1957 single)

Sayonara (1957 single)

Lemon Soul (1969 single)

"Like Someone in Love" by Pat Kirby

"The Gentlemen Obviously Doesn't Believe" by Pat Kirby

"Love" by Pat Kirby

"I'm Glad There Is You" by Pat Kirby on Tonight Starring Steve Allen

"The Girl Next Door" by Pat Kirby on Tonight Starring Steve Allen

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