The top ten male solo artists EVER

5/02/10 | Phil.K

[Jakarta ex-pat]

OK. So which male artists NOT associated with duo, group etc would make your top 10. Here's mine..in no particular order..Non opera please!

[AGreatPer]

Gary Puckett is playing with the Union Gap at our local casino next week. Free show.

[BluesDuke]

Amos 'n' Andy
Fibber McGee & Molly, 1940 shows (On the same archive.org page you'll find 1941-1954 shows that survived, as most of the series did . . . )
The Whistler, 1942 (On the same archive.org page you'll find all seasons that survived of this show, which in my opinion beat The Shadow hollow for effective crime drama.)
Gunsmoke (If you're going to listen to a radio western again, start with the best and then pick up on Fort Laramie, Frontier Gentleman, and The Six Shooter, the latter starring James Stewart in the title role. These will almost make you forget The Lone Ranger. Almost.)

And, for some more vintage radio comedy . . .

Duffy's Tavern
Easy Aces
The Fitch Bandwagon/The Phil Harris-Alice Faye Show
The Fred Allen Show
The Great Gildersleeve
The Halls of Ivy (with film legend Ronald Colman and his wife, Benita Hume, in the title roles)
The Henry Morgan Show
The Jack Benny Program (The same page will bring you Benny from 1939 through 1956, too!)
Lum & Abner
The Marriage (Very short lived, unfairly so, a pretty sophisticated drawing room comedy featuring Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy and based loosely on their stage play The Four Poster)
Our Miss Brooks
Vic & Sade

And, if you'd like what was the last big bid to mount an old-time radio variety show . . .

The Big Show (NBC, 1950-52; host: Tallulah Bankhead; frequent guests: Fred Allen, Groucho Marx; shows include performances by, among others, Ethel Merman, Ed Wynn, Louis Armstrong, Bob Hope, Martin & Lewis, Fanny Brice, Jimmy Durante---who was part of the first installment---Meredith Willson, the show's musical director, Margaret Truman, Joan Davis, Gypsy Rose Lee, Jose Ferrer, Phil Silvers, Judy Holliday, Margaret O'Brien, Lucienne Boyer, Edith Piaf, and Bert Lahr; head writer: Easy Aces mastermind Goodman Ace)

No, I'm not that old, even if I was born when the old-time radio era was pretty much on life support, but I did discover the art about a decade ago in earnest and the nice part for me is that it's not my nostalgia. So I can listen to this not as clanking nostalgia but as living, breathing art.

And it's damn funnier even now than about ninety-five percent of the compost that's passing for comedy these days . . .

[Joya]

I posted this once but it vaporized, another one, hey y’all, CHECK HIM OUT, Josh Groban,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dK_TOg1KRM&feature=related

[goat granny]

Many of the shows you mention are familiar to me.Duffy's Tavern, the Great Gildersleeve was great Our Miss Brooks was good both on radio and the TV series. Of course Jack Benny and Phil Harris & Alice Faye.

The writers of today don't know how to write a decent story line without it reeking of sex. I never thought of sex as a spectator sport but lots of people do I guess..

I love the reruns of Barney Miller 1 hour, 2 shows back to back, written in the 70's and still funny as the dickens..Same for the Bob Newhart show and I always liked the off the wall show of 3rd Planet from the sun...

Good writing talent seems to be few and far between lately when it comes to sit coms...

[Joya]

Very nice. Thanks.

[Joya]

I really enjoyed The Three. Thanks!

[BluesDuke]

The writers of today don't know how to write a decent story line without it reeking of sex. I never thought of sex as a spectator sport but lots of people do I guess..

It's not so much that they can't write a storyline without it reeking of sex---though I admit a continuous barrage of sex is enough to turn you off sex for a good while---as it seems that they can't find a way to address it without getting raunchy or spectator-sport about it. A good comedy writer can brush against sex with subtlety that doesn't disrespect the proper animus of sex. A little sly innuendo beats a lot of overt cracking. The power of suggestiveness is way more effective (and the joke endures more) than the blunt force trauma of being banged over the head.

The real problem with most of today's comedy writers is that they don't know one of the most valuable lessons of comedy, especially when you're doing a character sketch or a good dialogic segment: you can actually kill the joke by going for a big laugh. I learned that lesson from Goodman Ace and it's been invaluable to me in my current work. (I have a radio comedy show of my own in Las Vegas.)

By the way, I wasn't just mentioning a bunch of classic radio shows---those links will take you to the surviving installments of the shows themselves. (Thanks to places like archive.org, I now have a collection of five thousand old-time radio shows and counting . . . )

I love the reruns of Barney Miller 1 hour, 2 shows back to back, written in the 70's and still funny as the dickens..Same for the Bob Newhart show and I always liked the off the wall show of 3rd Planet from the sun...

You meant 3rd Rock From The Sun, I think. And I'm a big fan of that show. I know this is good for a flame war in some places but I liked Seinfeld, especially its first five seasons. That show would have been great radio, if you think about it. So for that matter would Frasier, no pun intended. So would The Bob Newhart Show and Barney Miller. I'm always surprised to discover there were practically no police-oriented comedies in the old-time radio days. But I guess I shouldn't be. If J. Edgar Hoover could have been ass enough to arm-twist the makers of The Green Hornet into changing part of that show's introduction (the original: He hunts the biggest of all game: public enemies even the G-men can't reach; the bowdlerisation: He hunts the biggest of all game: public enemies who try to destroy our America) because his vanity wouldn't allow him to think that there were some criminals even the FBI couldn't nail right off the bat, God only knows how vain some police commissioners would have been. Even if the cops on the beat would have known how to laugh at themselves and the stupid crooks they had to deal with most of the time as opposed to the really big cheeses . . .

Here are some more links to some more vintage radio shows for your pleasure . . .

The Adventures of Sam Spade
Columbia Workshop
The Danny Kaye Show
The Goldbergs
Quiet, Please

Enjoy!

[choirboy]

It took 133 posts to name Willie Nelson? Things are worse than I imagined.

[dfwgator]

Eddie Murphy on James Brown (Warning: Language)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L54iLYI8nlY&feature=related

[dfwgator]

The fact he’s a flaming lib is probably the reason.

[Fiji Hill]

I have a 1937 Delco floor model radio that still works, and I keep it in my living room.

[death2tyrants]

Benny Goodman

Glen Miller

[Joya]

Luther Vandross

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GEGNjrE4S-E

= = =

Glen Campbell

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4qoymGCDYzU

= = =

Andy Williams

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flm4xcOyiCo

[Joya]

My faves:

Dan Fogelberg, Jeremy Camp, Elvis, Johnny Cash, David Phelps, Elton John, Josh Groban, Luther Vandross, Andy Williams, Glen Campbell.

[BluesDuke]

I'm thinking of two guys who have not showed up on this thread who I always liked - Steve Miller and Boz Scaggs.

Especially when they worked together in the original Steve Miller Band, which was blues rooted. As for Boz Scaggs getting tired of playing "Loan Me a Dime" (you can probably blame Duane Allman posthumously for that, since it became a best-seller all over again as part of Duane Allman: An Anthology), you wonder how soon before he got fed up playing "Lido Shuffle" or "Lowdown" in later years . . . I remember seeing Scaggs and his first post-Miller group in a show at Fillmore East where they opened for John Mayall (on the USA Union tour) and they were a good, tight blues and soul band . . .

[DollyCali]

Ray Orbison .. what a range he had. Good list although I dont know who a couple on your list are..

[DollyCali]

scanned the thread & see Ray Orbsion was brought up.. another I like.. James Brown.. I feel good!