I picked up my first Pearl Williams album many years ago while working at the Confirmed Bachelor Record Store. Recorded live in the early 60s during a "late, late show," A Trip Around The World Is Not A Cruise opens like this:
(Pearl sits down at the piano, tinkles a few chords)
"Good evening, this is Pearl Williams. A raconteur, a story seller - dirty stories, clean stories. I'm also a chanteuse - which is French for cuerva. I own a vibrator. A French poodle. And I went out and bought a Roto-Rooter. Oh that Roto-Rooter (followed by an unintelligible but no doubt filthy Yiddishism). Oh I love my Roto-Rooter. A looong Roto-Rooter, I can lend it to two broads standing behind me. Definition, of indecent: If it's long enough, hard enough, and in far enough, it's in decent."
And so it goes. Lots of self-accompanied after-hours shtick and songs - mostly one-liners and jokes about "knishes, "shlongs," and "the new Jewish holiday - October 21, the day the new Cadillacs go on sale." All delivered with Pearl's husky-voiced killer timing. Check these sites for her bio and historical context (i.e., Belle Barth and Patsy Abbott).
Here are 28 MP3s of Pearl Williams' best and ballsiest bits pulled from her bawdy adult party albums:
"For That I'll Need A Glusenshpiegelbaster" (MP3)
"We're Gonna Blow The Whole Network" (MP3)
"The Pill Is Called Upjohn" (MP3)
"Definition Of Indecent" (MP3)
"Kiss Your Ass Goodbye" (MP3)
"Now Tell Her What I Said" (MP3)
"My People" (MP3)
"Shut Your Hole And Let Mine Make A Little Money" (MP3)
"Breakfast Of Champions" (MP3)
"I'll Sit On You, You'll Disappear" (MP3)
"A Rabbi Performing A Shmeckelectomy" (MP3)
"So Now Let's Get Down To A Little Tachlis Here" (MP3)
"I Get Such A Headache!" (MP3)
"Yiddishe Mama" (MP3)
"Hava Nagila" (MP3)
"Good Morning, Mr. Gray" (MP3)
"Hey, Ya Wanna Shut Up?" (MP3)
"I Was Swimming In The Pool At The Motel" (MP3)
"Some Jewish Words Sound Terrible" (MP3)
"Roto-Rooter" (MP3)
"I Found A New Way To Do It" (MP3)
"She Thinks I'm A Whore In Chicago" (MP3)
"Answer The Phone Already" (MP3)
"Come Back To Sorrento" (MP3)
"Sings In Yiddish" (MP3)
"Your Mother Know What You Do For A Living?" (MP3)
"Honey, I Got No Talent" (MP3)
The link to
"Good Morning, Mr. Gray"
is wrong. This is the correct one, I think:
http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/ML/pearl_williams1.mp3
Posted by: Anonymous | August 11, 2005 at 08:57 AM
Thanks, Mon - Somewhere I've got a Pearl Williams LP, perhaps the one you mentioned; used to play it on my show back in thet days before "euphemistic" language was completely outlawed.
Posted by: WmMBerger | August 11, 2005 at 03:21 PM
anyone know where i can buy a pearl williams cd titled a trip around the world isnt a cruise?
Posted by: Allen Gabrielsen | June 21, 2007 at 01:18 PM
A friend and I were discussing seeing Pearl William perform at a bar/nightclub in the Jerome Avenue/north of Fordham Road vicinity back in the 1950's. Do you or anyone else know the name of the bar? My friend thinks is the Burma Bar, but it doesn't ring a bell for me.
Pearl was raunchy but quite talented and was sort of the Bronx's Belle Barth.
Posted by: Arlin Weingold | October 06, 2008 at 09:23 PM
Back in the late 70's/early 80's I lived on Miami Beach and Pearl when Pearl was a regular at the Place Pigalle, just the marquees at that place were a hoot, photos of the strippers and Pearl, all taken in their more youthful days.
They used to have a little ad in the Miami Herald and it always featured "Pearl Williams, the Queen of Risque Comedy" or "Pearl Williams, the Gal that Shocked Las Vegas!"
It was such a camp, one night a friend and I went to see her perform, we waited an hour or so, the management told us they weren't sure if she was coming in that night, guess by this time she just kinda showed up if she was in the mood..lol
Well, after another hour of waiting it was pretty obvious she wasn't in the mood so I never did get to see her.
Posted by: Will Truth | July 28, 2009 at 10:11 AM
A friend of mine had a Pearl Willaims album when we were in high school in the late 60's that we really loved, so when I was in FL visiting my parents and saw the ad for the Place Pigalle, I couldn't belive it! I told my wife we have to go, so we all piled in the car and went over to Collins Ave where she was performing and had a blast. This was ealry 80's, ans she was preceded by TT Red, an exotic dancer, and a comedian who clamed he was half Japanese and half Korean and called himself Kojap. She was a great storyteller and we went top see hear again the following 2 winter visits, it was always a fun night out. We even dragged my 75 year old father one year. I'm sorry the last post didnt get to see her perform. It was adult humer, but nothing by today's standards. If anyone wants a CD, I digitized a few of her albums and can send a copy free, a few pops and a scratch here ans there, but otherwise descent condition.
Posted by: Jim McCloskey | October 05, 2009 at 04:38 PM
Oh my g-d I would love to get a cd ! I am a 45 year old professional rock and roll guitarist, my mother and father were Holocaust survivors. I remember finding some of there old party records in Chicago whyen I was 10 or 11 years old. YOY did we laugh
Posted by: Robert Simon | November 25, 2009 at 11:29 AM
I have not heard any of this stuff in forever! It has been a while. I was talking to my bellevue plumber the other day and he was telling me about a party that he went to. They were playing a lot of the songs that you have listed here. I will have to start planning a party for this coming weekend.
Posted by: Moe | September 04, 2012 at 10:12 AM
For what it's worth (which ain't much, I know), here's what "glusenshpiegelbaster" is: "groysn shpigl, veyst ir" ("big mirror, you know"). So: "For that I need a big mirror, you know." I.e., to see her lady parts.
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