Jack Mudurian
Encyclopedia
Jack Mudurian was an American novelty singer
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Mudurian was a resident of Duplex Nursing Home in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1981, an employee named David Greenberg overheard Mudurian singing at a home talent show, and when Greenberg spoke to him about it, Mudurian boasted that he could sing as many songs as Frank Sinatra
. Greenberg brought in a cassette tape recorder
and asked him to sing; Mudurian proceeded to sing 129 songs, many from the Tin Pan Alley
repertory (and several more than once), continuously over the next 47 minutes. The recording was issued as Downloading the Repertoire on Arf Arf Records in 1996, and it became a cult novelty hit; a shortened version appeared on Irwin Chusid
's compilation of outsider music
called Songs in the Key of Z
, Vol. 1.
Novelty song
A novelty song is a comical or nonsensical song, performed principally for its comical effect. Humorous songs, or those containing humorous elements, are not necessarily novelty songs. The term arose in Tin Pan Alley to describe one of the major divisions of popular music. The other two divisions...
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Mudurian was a resident of Duplex Nursing Home in Boston, Massachusetts. In 1981, an employee named David Greenberg overheard Mudurian singing at a home talent show, and when Greenberg spoke to him about it, Mudurian boasted that he could sing as many songs as Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
. Greenberg brought in a cassette tape recorder
Tape recorder
An audio tape recorder, tape deck, reel-to-reel tape deck, cassette deck or tape machine is an audio storage device that records and plays back sounds, including articulated voices, usually using magnetic tape, either wound on a reel or in a cassette, for storage...
and asked him to sing; Mudurian proceeded to sing 129 songs, many from the Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...
repertory (and several more than once), continuously over the next 47 minutes. The recording was issued as Downloading the Repertoire on Arf Arf Records in 1996, and it became a cult novelty hit; a shortened version appeared on Irwin Chusid
Irwin Chusid
Irwin Chusid is a journalist, music historian, radio personality and self-described "landmark preservationist." His stated mission has been to "find things on the scrapheap of history that I know don't belong there and salvage them." Those "things" have included such previously overlooked but...
's compilation of outsider music
Outsider music
Outsider music, a term coined by Irwin Chusid in the mid-1990s, are songs and compositions by musicians who are not part of the commercial music industry who write songs that ignore standard musical or lyrical conventions, either because they have no formal training or because they disagree with...
called Songs in the Key of Z
Songs in the Key of Z
Songs in the Key of Z is the title of a book and two compilation albums written and compiled by Irwin Chusid. The book and albums explore the field of what Chusid coined as "outsider music"...
, Vol. 1.
External links
- Jack Mudurian at Counterpoint-music.com
- Brilliant or Merely Bizarre? New York Times, August 20, 1996
- Downloading the Repertoire, All Things ConsideredAll Things ConsideredAll Things Considered is the flagship news program on the American network National Public Radio. It was the first news program on NPR, and is broadcast live worldwide through several outlets...
, September 10, 1999 - Music That's Far Out of the Mainstream, East Bay RI, November 20, 2006