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Our CDs

The Best of Bert and I
Celebrating 50 Years of Stories from Down East
by Robert Bryan and Marshall Dodge

$16.95
1 CD, Maine Humor
ISBN: 978-1-934031-05-6


audio
Census Taker
Lewis Bayard and the Judge


CD: Bert and I On Stage
CD: Bert and I ... And Other Stories
DVD: A Downeast Smile-In

Get the T-shirt!
Now available: Bert and I T-shirts

ABOUT THE CD
The Best of Bert and I: Celebrating 50 Years of Stories from Down East
Our new CD features the best routines selected from the four original Bert and I CDs, plus stories taken from Bert and I On Stage and The Downeast Smile-In television show featuring Marshall Dodge. All tracks on this commemorative CD have been digitally remastered for clarity. These 34 stories wonderfully capture the groundbreaking, iconic brilliance of Dodge and Bryan, and include Bert and I, Which Way to Millinocket?, Set ‘er again, Gagnon, and No News. (Complete track list)

About Bert and I
"Bert and I come down to the dock about six'clock in the early morning. Bert went into the boathouse to fetch the pots and the slickers and I went out to the dock to start up the Bluebird."

And so begins the first story on the first album in 1958 that not only launched Bert and I as conceived by Marshall Dodge and Bob Bryan, but essentially marked the keystone event of the modern "Down East" Humor Era. Some estimate that Bert and I has sold more than one million records in the past 50 years, and nearly everyone who has spent time in Maine knows someone who quotes Bert and I or struggles to mimic Dodge's iconic sound effects. Let's not forget that these two popularized the now-ubiquitous, "You can't get they-ah from he-ah" and established the dry humor template that would be used again and again across New England.

Bert and I are now almost as synonymous with Maine as L.L. Bean and lobsters – they are engrained in the culture and the lexicon. They may not have invented the genre, but they cleaned it up, popularized it, and pushed it into the mainstream. Nearly every Maine comedian or humorist who has performed in the past five decades owes a debt to Dodge and Bryan. Bert and I. That says it all.

 ABOUT THE STORYTELLERS
Marshall "Mike" Dodge stands undeniably as a godfather of Down East humor, bringing an energy and imagination to the stage that took him from a small Connecticut studio to his standing as the premier "New England" humorist of his era, before he was tragically killed by a hit-and-run driver in Hawaii in 1982. He was just 45. Mike was born in New York, attended high school in New Hampshire (where he first heard "Down East humor"), and graduated from Yale, where he studied philosophy. It was at Yale in 1958 that he and Bob Bryan cut the first Bert and I album and launched what is now a Maine icon.

Robert Bryan helped launch Bert and I with Dodge in part by drawing upon his memories from childhood summers spent at his beloved Tunk Lake, where he was fascinated by the area's stories and storytellers. Like Dodge, Bob was born and raised in New York and graduated from Yale. Unlike Dodge, who continued as full-time performer, Rev. Robert A. Bryan used earnings from the early records in the 1960s to help launch and grow another dream – the Quebec-Labrador Foundation, which provides support to remote communities mainly in Quebec and Labrador. Bob continues as a major force at QLF and remains involved in the continued life of Bert and I.


TRACK LIST for The Best of Bert and I
1 Bert and I
2 Which Way to Millinocket?
3 The Liar
4 The Body in the Kelp
5 Mad Dog
6 Arnold Bunker Testifies
7 Down East Socialism
8 By a Fluke
9 Directions
10 The Chicken Truck
11 The Silent Chain Saw
12 Gagnon
13 Bear in the Spring
14 Texas vs. Maine
15 The Captain and the Lady
16 Birth Control
17 Virgil Bliss
18 Too Late, Mr. Perkins
19 Camden Pierce Goes to New York
20 Virgil and Hattie
21 The Whole Load
22 No News
23 At the Graveyard
24 Lewis Bayard and the Judge (Click the title to hear this track)
25 Suicide
26 The Pet Turkey
27 The Lament of Age
28 The Plane Ride
29 One Heckuva Draft
30 Beginner's Luck
31 Set Her Again
32 Two Lobstermen
33 Muddy Walking
34 Census Taker (Click the title to hear this track)