The Harvard Lampoon Tabernacle Choir Sings at Leningrad Stadium

 

The Harvard Lampoon Tabernacle Choir Sings at Leningrad Stadium
Vanitas Records LP

December 1961

Side 1

1 John Foster Dulles
2 The Harvard Coop
3 What Is Love
4 The Great Name Dropper
5 A Christmas Prayer
6 I'm Losing Irv To The Ready Reserve

Side 2

7 (My) Fallout Filly
8 The Penguin
9 Sweet Teen-Age Cadaver
10 Sweet Earthbound Teen Lover
11 Rigor-Mortis Bluse
12 The Answer From Heaven
13 I Keep My Fingernails Long (So, They’ll Click When I Play The Piano)

Artists : 1 & 2  Cerf, The Chorus, Main And The Mainiacs - 3 Cerf, Frith, The Chorus, And The Mainiacs - 4 Winter, The Chorus, The Disputants, Cerf, Felson, And The Mainiacs - 5  Gram, Stuart, Saltonstall, And Morrison - 6 Cerf, Felson Main, And The Mainiacs - 7 Cerf, Butler Morrison, Felson, And The Mainiacs - 8 Cerf, The Chorus, The Penguiners, And The Mainiacs - 9 & 10  Stebbins, Frith, And The Mainiacs; Cerf And Gram, Harmonists - 11 Cerf, Main And The Mainiacs - 12 Cerf And The Mainiacs - 13 Piel, Goodkin, Villard, Stuart, Cerf, The Chorus And The Clickers

The Mainiacs : lead guitar : Gordie Main, guitar bass : K. Paul Smith II, rhythm guitar : Tom James, saxophone: "Shades" Felson, drums: Phil Morrison.
 
The closing song "I Keep My Fingernails Long So They Click When I Play The Piano" was used by Joe Ely in 1978 for his LP 'Honky Tonk Masquerade' with full credits to Ely. To be fair, he added a bridge and changed "Capistrano' to 'Texarkana.'

"Vanitas" is the motto of the Harvard Lampoon, in reference to Harvard College's motto, "Veritas".
Recorded on the spot in Vibraphonic Stratophidelity-500 (front cover, top)
Songs Copyright 1958, 1961: Harvard Lampoon and C. B. Cerf (on label)

The record got several reviews in the campus paper The Harvard Crimson between Nov. 8, 1961 - March 23, 1962. The record sought to establish their new dance 'The Penguin' as a rival to 'The Twist.' The basic dance is essentially a shuffle, danced very quickly to a shuffle beat. Each dancer keeps their arms at their sides with palms extended in a position parallel with the floor to imitate flippers. When the music stops, the dancers poke each other in the stomach and yell, Whee!"

Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas
(covers and labels included)

Of Gordie Main, little is known. He came from Minnesota and had never see black before going to Harvard (source:The Last Negroes At Harvard: The Class of 1963 and the 18 Young Men Who Changed Harvard Forever.)
 

  Chris Cerf is much better known for association with Sesame Street.

Chris Cerf : When I was on the Harvard Lampoon we actually made a record of some of them and the reason that’s relevant, I was hired to work on Sesame Street for quite different reasons right after it started but the music director had gone to Harvard with me and remembered I could write rock and roll, so when they need some for Sesame Street, he said, Do you want to try?