[A Tip O’ The Hat to mark_evanier]
mark_evanier, in a recent post, noted that this year is Oregon’s 150th Anniversary. Now, this normally wouldn’t be of note, except that back in 1959 (which was Oregon’s 100th birthday), they commissioned satirist Stan Freberg to produce a celebratory musical in the spirit of works like Omaha! and The United States of America (the latter came before, the former after, so I guess he was working up from city to state to nation). In any case, before Mark’s post, I never knew about Oregon! Oregon!.
Back to the story. Oregon! Oregon! ended up being a 21-minute, 3-act musical, performed as a record and debuted on radio. Most never heard it. However, for the 150th anniversary, the state is commissioning Stan to add a 4th act… and NPR has done a piece on it. Even better, the article includes a link so that you can listen to the original recording.
Needless to say, Roxio just came in handy, and it’s going on the iPod, together with Omaha! (which was already there)
