By definition, a souvenir program is a hastily contrived potpourri of sweepings from the floor of a publicity department's frenzied office. The theory behind the souvenir program - and a most workable one it is indeed - is that theater patrons who have paid upwards of $2.50 for a ticket can be persuaded by a stentorian-lunged lobby huckster waving a gaudy cover to part with an additional dollar for a twelve-page brochure that, with dreary regularity, is comprised of the following material:
1. PHOTOGRAPHS: These are invariably flattering, retouched and aged exponentially in proportion to the logarithmic age of the subject. (For those of you who may be taking notes and are non-mathematical to begin with, let us clarify this proposition by referring to Chart A immediately below.)
The photographs fall into four general categories:
A. Studio glossies: These are the posed and laboriously retouched - shots that may see somewhat familiar to you. This is most understandable, since they have been reprinted on the drama and music pages of every metropolitan daily paper for as long as the artist has been in the public eye.
B. Action shots: Candid photos (taken through a gauze knee compress stretched over the lens).
C. "Informal" shots: The artist relaxing at home with family, Kaywoodie and Doberman pinscher.
D. "Gag" shots: These, we are sure, are all too distressingly familiar to you. For example the Limeliters have a photo, probably hidden away among these very pages, of Alex and GIenn attempting to stuff Lou into his bass case.
2. PRESS NOTICES: A must for inclusion in any successful souvenir book. In other words you pay one dollar for a collection of reprints of rave reviews of an artist you already esteem sufficiently to pay as much as $4.40 for the privilege of seeing. Nevertheless, for those of you who must have them we present a few in capsule form below:
"The Limeliters stole all their material from the Kingston Trio." - Charlie Brown, Peanuts
"... clapplauding the zany patter and delightfularking of The Limeliters." - Walter Winchell
"The Limeliters miraculously manage to inject an astringent note of corybantic abandon combined with a curious vein of didactic aplomb that somehow does not debase the genuine coinage of folk-art." - Thelonious Monk
"Man, this is a funny group! I mean they really come ON!" - Lenny Bruce
3. RECORD PROMOTION: At least one page devoted to
promoting the sale of recordings made by the artist. We'll
save you the page, for here's the promotion:
On five joyful albums America's most exciting folk singers blend harmony and humor and sing about everything from the perils of credit cards to the brotherhood of man. In the heavily populated folksinging field the Limeliters' albums are fresh, fun-filled examples of what separates the men from the noise. Hear them today.
4. ADVERTISING: Ads for record companies, manufacturers of musical equipment used by the artist, and similar concerns who have been pressured and bedeviled by the artist's agent to buy space.
5. COPY: Roseate biographies - in most cases utterly fallacious, nauseatingly sentimental and abounding with all the noxious excesses of "get-rich-quick Wallingordism." Since all three members of The Limeliters are scions of affluent, cultured and philanthropic households, the the purchaser of this slightly atypical souvenir program will be mercifully spared any "rags-to-riches" syndrome that characterizes most publications of this kind.
So, now you have been warned and if you're still as brave as you were when you put out that dollar for this book, turn the page and try to enjoy yourself.
- The Limeliters
1963 Souvenir Program
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Introduction | historiography |
louis gottlieb | alex hassilev | glenn yarbrough |
the doctor and the fiddle | thank you
Last update: December 29, 1997
