R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Serenaders are an American retro string band playing songs from, and in the style of, the 1920s:

old-time music Old-time music is a genre of North American folk music. It developed along with various North American folk dances, such as square dancing, clogging, and buck dancing. It is played on acoustic instruments, generally centering on a combination ...

ragtime Ragtime, also spelled rag-time or rag time, is a musical style that flourished from the 1890s to 1910s. Its cardinal trait is its syncopated or "ragged" rhythm. Ragtime was popularized during the early 20th century by composers such as Scott ...

, "evergreen" jazz standards, western swing, country blues, Hawaiian, hokum,

vaudeville Vaudeville (; ) is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 19th century. A vaudeville was originally a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation: a dramatic composition ...

and medicine show tunes. Underground cartoonist Robert Crumb was the band's frontman and

album cover An album cover (also referred to as album art) is the front packaging art of a commercially released studio album or other audio recordings. The term can refer to either the printed paperboard covers typically used to package sets of and 78-r ...

artist. Other members of the band include fellow cartoonist Robert Armstrong and filmmaker Terry Zwigoff (who directed the 1995 documentary '' Crumb'').

History

Crumb and Armstrong, who knew each other from the underground comics scene, realized that they both enjoyed listening to — and playing — music from the 1920s and '30s. Bringing in Armstrong's old friend Al Dodge, the trio began playing together for fun. On a subsequent trip through

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...

, the group met with underground publisher Denis Kitchen, who offered them the chance to cut a 78 rpm record under the name R. Crumb and his Keep on Trucking Orchestra (a reference to Crumb's famous Keep on Truckin' comic strip, which itself was a riff on the Blind Boy Fuller song "Truckin' My Blues Away").Lynch, Megan
"The Cheap Suit Serenaders,"
AllMusic.com. Accessed Nov. 17, 2019. The 78 caught the attention of

Blue Goose Records Blue Goose Records was an American independent record label set up in the early 1970s by Nick Perls. While on Blue Goose's sister label, Yazoo Records, Perls compiled rare 78 rpm recordings from the 1920s by Charley Patton, Blind Willie McTell, Me ...

, which offered to produce and release an LP of the band, which had changed its name to the Cheap Suit Serenaders after "hurriedly buying suits at

the Salvation Army The Salvation Army (TSA) is a Protestant church and an international charitable organisation headquartered in London, England. The organisation reports a worldwide membership of over 1.7million, comprising soldiers, officers and adherents col ...

in order to meet the minimum dress code required of the band at a posh wedding." R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Serenaders released their first album in 1974. Over time, the trio added Dan Wheetman (later of the band

Marley's Ghost Jacob Marley is a fictional character in Charles Dickens's 1843 novella ''A Christmas Carol'', a former business partner of the miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who has been dead for seven years.Hawes, Donal''Who's Who in Dickens'' Routledge (1998), Goog ...

), Terry Zwigoff on cello, and Tom Marion on guitar and mandolin. In 1978, Tony Marcus replaced Marion. Also in 1978, guitarist

Bob Brozman Bob Brozman (March 8, 1954 – April 23, 2013) was an American guitarist and ethnomusicologist. Biography Brozman was born to a Jewish family in Long Island, New York, and began playing the guitar when he was six. He performed gypsy jazz, ca ...

came in for the band's third album. By the mid-1980s, the group played fewer live shows because Armstrong and Crumb had moved out of the Bay Area; by the mid-1990s Crumb had moved to France. As of 2006 R. Crumb was no longer much involved with the group; the band at that time included Robert Armstrong (vocals,

musical saw A musical saw, also called a singing saw, is a hand saw used as a musical instrument. Capable of continuous glissando (portamento), the sound creates an ethereal tone, very similar to the theremin. The musical saw is classified as a plaque f ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected stri ...

(vocals, various resonator instruments, guitar,

ukulele The ukulele ( ; from haw, ukulele , approximately ), also called Uke, is a member of the lute family of instruments of Portuguese origin and popularized in Hawaii. It generally employs four nylon strings. The tone and volume of the instrumen ...

), Al (Allan) Dodge (vocals,

mandolin A mandolin ( it, mandolino ; literally "small mandola") is a stringed musical instrument in the lute family and is generally plucked with a pick. It most commonly has four courses of doubled strings tuned in unison, thus giving a total of 8 ...

), Terry Zwigoff (saw,

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

Stroh violin The Stroh violin or Stroviol is a type of stringed musical instrument that is mechanically amplified by a metal resonator and horn attached to its body. The name Stroviol refers to a violin, but other instruments have been modified with the a ...

, and mandolin), and Tony Marcus (vocals, guitar, and

fiddle A fiddle is a bowed string musical instrument, most often a violin. It is a colloquial term for the violin, used by players in all genres, including classical music. Although in many cases violins and fiddles are essentially synonymous, th ...

). Brozman died in 2013; as of 2017, the other members of the group still play annually at the Freight and Salvage, a folk-oriented concert venue in

Berkeley, California Berkeley ( ) is a city on the eastern shore of San Francisco Bay in northern Alameda County, California, United States. It is named after the 18th-century Irish bishop and philosopher George Berkeley. It borders the cities of Oakland and Emer ...

Discography

The band's 33⅓ rpm albums, all recorded in the 1970s on the

label, were titled ''R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Serenaders'' (1974), '' R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Serenaders No. 2'' (1976), and ''R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Serenaders No. 3'' (1978); the latter two were reissued on the

Shanachie Records Shanachie Records is an American, New Jersey-based record label, founded in 1975 by Richard Nevins and Dan Collins. The label is named for the Gaelic word ''seanchaí'' (anglicised as shanachie), an Irish storyteller. It was previously distribu ...

label in 1993 as ''Chasin' Rainbows'' and ''Singing In the Bathtub'' respectively. As a novelty, the band issued a number of 78 rpm 10-inch

single Single may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * Single (music), a song release Songs * "Single" (Natasha Bedingfield song), 2004 * "Single" (New Kids on the Block and Ne-Yo song), 2008 * "Single" (William Wei song), 2016 * "Single", by ...

s for Blue Goose, long after the format was obsolete. The most familiar is probably ''R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Serenaders' Party Record'' (1980), with the double-entendre " My Girl's Pussy" on the "A" side and X-rated "Christopher Columbus" on the "B" side. The band's self-titled debut LP is currently out of print, though the tracks "Get a Load of This" and "Cheap Suit Special" were re-released on the ''R. Crumb Music Sampler'' CD, which was included with ''The R. Crumb Handbook'' (M Q Publications, 2005).

In popular culture

The band is referenced in the 2001 film '' Ghost World'', directed by Zwigoff. Enid asks Seymour about the band's second album, ''Chasin' Rainbows'', and Seymour replies, "Nah, that one's not so great." The Cheap Suit Serenaders songs "Chasin' Rainbows" and "Hula Medley" were both featured on the '' American Splendor (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)'', released by New Line Records in 2003."Various – American Splendor (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack),"
Discogs. Accessed June 14, 2019. (''American Splendor'' is based on the writings of

Harvey Pekar Harvey Lawrence Pekar (; October 8, 1939 – July 12, 2010) was an American underground comic book writer, music critic, and media personality, best known for his autobiographical ''American Splendor'' comic series. In 2003, the series inspired a ...

, with whom R. Crumb collaborated many times.) The Cheap Suit Serenaders' version of "My Girl's Pussy" is used as the opening theme song of the Australian television comedy series '' Laid'', which premiered in 2011.

References

External links

R. Crumb and his Cheap Suit Serenaders
(Overview of activities)
Robert Armstrong's music page, with links to the three Cheap Suit Serenaders albums

{{DEFAULTSORT:R. Crumb and His Cheap Suit Serenaders American folk musical groups American blues musical groups Old-time bands

History

Discography

In popular culture

See also

References

External links