"A Young Man and a Maid"
Cynthia Gooding and Theodore
Bikel, 1958
A
Young Man and a Maid: Love Songs of Many Lands
is another one of the those records which has found a place on the Hi-Fi
despite the music it holds. This record is a collection of folk songs sung
by star-of-stage-and-screen Theo Bikel and his folk-singing gal pal Cynthia
Gooding. There are love from around the world and sung in their native
languages. We've got French love songs, Mexican love songs, Yiddish love
songs, Slavic love songs...you get the idea. As with many great Hi-Fi
albums, the cover and the title of the disc are its best selling points.
The title invokes images of naughty Victorian novels (of which every bachelor
should have one or two) and the cover features a the topless woman behind
opaque glass reaching for a apple--ala Eve and the Garden of Eden.
If you think about it, it's a rather ominous image (the downfall of Adam
and exile from paradise and all) to put on a record featuring love songs.
The songs on this album have as much passion as plain white toast, but
when you're selling to a plain white toast 50's audience it's not so bad.
This is one of those albums that a bachelor keeps around his apartment
because it makes him look learned in the fine art of love--something all
those young, unsuspecting bachelorettes really dig.
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