Shel Silverstein is best known for his quirky and irreverent children's books and poetry, including the modern classics The Giving Tree (1964), Where the Sidewalk Ends (1974) and A Light in the Attic (1981). Silverstein got his start when Hugh Hefner hired him in the 1950s to be the resident poet/cartoonist for Playboy magazine. While contributing poems, cartoons and travelogues to the magazine, Silverstein also wrote songs, among them the 1972 hit "The Cover of the Rolling Stone" by Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show and "A Boy Named Sue" by Johnny Cash. He was also nominated in 1991 for an Oscar, for the song "I'm Checkin' Out," performed by Meryl Streep in the movie Postcards From the Edge (1990, written by Carrie Fisher). His other books include A Giraffe and a Half (1964), The Missing Piece (1976) and Falling Up (1996).
Sept 25, 1930. Cartoonist and children’s author, best remembered for his poetry that included A Light in the Attic and The Giving Tree. Silverstein won the Michigan Young Reader’s Award for Where the Sidewalk Ends. Also a songwriter, he wrote “The Unicorn Song” and “A Boy Named Sue.” Born at Chicago, IL, he died at Key West, FL, May 9, 1999.
(born Sept. 25, 1932, Chicago, Ill., U.S. — died May 10, 1999, Key West, Fla.) U.S. cartoonist, children's author, poet, songwriter, and playwright. Often compared to Dr. Seuss (seeTheodor Geisel), Silverstein is best known for his children's stories and poems. Among his memorable characters are the protagonist in Uncle Shelby's Story of Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back (1963), the boy-man and tree in The Giving Tree (1964), and the partial circle in The Missing Piece. Silverstein was credited with helping young readers develop an appreciation of poetry, and his serious verse reveals an understanding of common childhood anxieties and wishes.
Although Shel Silverstein (1932-1999) did not intend to become a children's writer, he is best known for his poetry for children. "The Giving Tree, Where the Sidewalk Ends", and "A Light in the Attic" are some of his most notable works.
Shel Silverstein was born in 1932 in Chicago, Illinois. He started drawing and writing in his early teens because, according to him, he was not popular with the girls and was not good at sports. He did not have a lot of influences when he started to write and draw. But as he told Jean F. Mercier of Publishers Weekly, "I was also lucky that I didn't have anyone to copy, be impressed by. I had developed my own style." Indeed, that style is what has made him what some call a "literary cult figure."
Silverstein served with the U.S. armed forces in the 1950s, spending time in Korea and Japan. While in the service he drew cartoons for the Pacific Stars and Stripes. In 1952, he began his career as a writer and cartoonist for Playboy magazine. He was introduced to the distinguished book editor at Harper and Brothers, Ursula Nordstrom, who convinced him he could write for children.
A Unique Style
Silverstein's poetry for children is often silly, humorous, and a little strange. The accompanying black-and-white illustrations, amusing and sometimes rather morbid, are an integral part of the poetry, often needed in order to interpret the poem itself. Silverstein has been compared to poets such as Edward Lear, A. A. Milne, and Dr. Seuss. Many of his poems are adapted from his song lyrics, and the influence of his song-writing background is apparent in the poems' meters and rhythms. Eric A. Kimmel, in Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, characterized Silverstein this way: "His poems read like those a fourth grader would write in the back of his notebook when the teacher's eye was turned." Kimmel goes on to say: "that may be precisely their appeal."
To say there is more than one interpretation of Silverstein's work is an understatement. Some believe it is simply amusing and fun; others contend that the silliness hides deeper symbolism. That symbolism has been classified by some as educational; by others as harmful to children. Regardless of the mixed critical reaction, Silverstein's books seem to be everywhere: libraries, classrooms, children dren's bookshelves, and they are being widely used in elementary schools to teach poetry.
Silverstein's first book for children, Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book: A Primer for Tender Minds, was published in 1961. This was followed by Uncle Shelby's Story of Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back in 1963, about a lion who had kept a gun from an earlier encounter with a hunter and with practice became a good marksman. Zena Sutherland, in Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, called the book "daft" and described it as "a nonsense story about utter success."
The Giving Tree
One of Silverstein's most successful early books was The Giving Tree (1964). At first, publishers rejected the story. They thought that it fell between child and adult literature and would not sell. The story begins simply: "Once there was a tree … " and tells the story of a tree who gives everything to the boy she loves (the tree is characterized as female in the story). As a child the boy plays in the tree, gathers its leaves, swings on its branches, and eats its apples. Later he carves his and a girl's initials in its trunk, and as a young man he takes the tree's branches to build a house. As an old man, he needs a boat to take him away from it all, so the tree tells him to cut it down and make a boat, which the old man does. The tree, now just a stump, tells the man when he returns, now very old, to "Sit down and rest," and the tree is happy. But, as is common in Silverstein's work, it is not a happy ending. The tree has given up everything to the boy, who is now a bitter old man.
The story has been interpreted in many ways. Silverstein states in Something About the Author that it simply represents "a relationship between two people: one gives and the other takes." Barbara A. Schram classified it as "dangerous" due to its sexism and called it a "glorification of female selflessness and male selfishness," while William Cole called its message "a backup of 'more blessed to give than to receive."' Christian ministers read it in terms of Christian self-sacrifice, and Alice Digilio assumed the tree represented the selfless love of parents and the boy the ingratitude of children (Children's Literature Review). Despite some negative reviews and some concerns that the book may be too advanced for children, it put Silverstein on the best-seller list for the first time.
Where the Sidewalk Ends Brought Continued Popularity
Silverstein published three other children's books in 1964, in addition to The Giving Tree. They include A Giraffe and a Half, Uncle Shelby's Zoo: Don't Bump the Glump, and Who Wants a Cheap Rhinoceros? It was not until ten years later that he wrote his next children's book, but it became an instant success. Where the Sidewalk Ends: The Poems and Drawings of Shel Silverstein (1974) is considered a classic by many. Kimmel in Twentieth-Century Children's Writers asserts that, "No discussion of children's poetry can ignore Where the Sidewalk Endsand A Light in the Attic. [1981]. For better or worse, the monumental success of these two books has transformed the way poetry is taught in American schools." Myra Cohn Livingston in the New York Times Book Review compared one of Silverstein's poems in Where the Sidewalk Ends, part of which reads, "But the taste of a thumb / Is the sweetest taste yet," to Heinrich Hoffmann's 1846 piece "Little Suck-a-Thumb," in which children hear about "the scissors-man," who cuts off the offending thumbs of those who exercise this horrible habit. Unlike Hoffmann, Silverstein placed himself in the child's place much of the time, and his poetry, according to some, makes children feel like they have found a grown-up who understands them.
Where the Sidewalk Ends won the Michigan Young Readers' Award in 1981. The book was immensely popular, despite some content that was deemed "indelicate." For example, the collection includes poems about belching, nose picking, and smelly, disgusting garbage. Some critics continued to point out that Silverstein was "by no stretch of the imagination, a great poet" (Kimmel in Twentieth-Century Children's Writers). Still, Bernice E. Cullinan credited Where the Sidewalk Ends with making more children into poetry-lovers than any other book. Kimmel agreed that Silverstein's greatest contribution was in "convincing millions of children that poetry is neither difficult nor threatening."
The "Missing Piece" Stories
Silverstein provided another challenge of interpretation to readers when he published the two books The Missing Piece (1976) and The Missing Piece Meets the Big O (1981). In the first, the "character" of the book is a circle with a wedge-shaped piece missing who is rolling along in search of its mate. When it does come across the missing piece, however, it is rolling too fast and goes right by it. Instead of ending the book there, Silverstein makes a point of telling the reader that the circle continues on, singing and still searching. Critics have approached the story from many angles, from accrediting it with a life-is-a-journey theme, to condemning it for suggesting that being alone is better than committing to another. In The Missing Piece Meets the Big O, the character is the wedge-shaped piece, first introduced in the previous book, who is looking for an object into which it can insert itself and thus gain a free ride in the world. Acting on the advice of the Big O, the wedge discovers that it can get around by itself after all and does not need someone to carry it. Most assume the message deals with the issue of independence, but not all agree whether such a message is more appropriate for children or divorced adults.
Another Best-Seller
In 1981, Silverstein published another collection of poems and drawings, A Light in the Attic. This book was chosen by School Library Journal as one of the best books of 1981. Leigh Dean in Children's Literature Review credited it with making Silverstein the guru of elementary school teachers' poetry units. It remained on the New York Times best-seller list for more than three years. Containing 136 poems and 175 pages, A Light in the Attic again incorporates sometimes bizarre drawings with light, humorous rhymes about the fears and fantasies of children.
Music and Film
Although Silverstein is best known for his children's poetry, he is also a folksong composer and has written dozens of songs. Some of these include "A Boy Named Sue," "One's on the Way," "Boa Constrictor," and "So Good to So Bad." Many artists have performed his work, including Johnny Cash, Lynn Anderson, and Jerry Lee Lewis. Silverstein also collaborated with the band Dr. Hook, producing a series of successful singles and albums. In 1980, he produced a folksong album titled The Great Conch Train Robbery. Albums of Silverstein's songs recorded by others include Freakin' at the Freaker's Ball (Columbia, 1972); Sloppy Seconds (Columbia, 1972); and Bobby Bare Sings Lullabys, Legends, and Lies: The Songs of Shel Silverstein (RCA Victor, 1972). In addition, Silverstein wrote the music for the films Ned Kelly (1970) and Who is Harry Kellerman and Why is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971); and co-wrote the music for Theives (1977) and Postcards from the Edge (1990). A song from the latter film, "I'm Checkin' Out," written by Silverstein, received nominations for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award in 1991. Silverstein's other venture into the motion picture world came when he wrote the screenplay for Things Change, which was produced as a movie in 1988. Another achievement was the 1981 production of his one-act play "The Lady or the Tiger?" It was produced at the Ensemble Studio Theatre in New York City and starred Richard Dreyfus.
Something for Everyone
Silverstein continued to work as a roving reporter and cartoonist. He was divorced and had one daughter. Because he kept a low profile and avoided publicity in general, little more is known about his personal life. He was a "free spirit," as is evidenced by his statement to Jean F. Merier in Publishers Weekly: "I'm free to leave … go wherever I please, do whatever I want; I believe everyone should live like that. Don't be dependent on anyone else-man, woman, child, or dog. I want to go everywhere, look at and listen to everything. You can go crazy with some of the wonderful stuff there is in life." As mentioned in Something About the Author, he did "hope that people, no matter what age, would find something to identify with in my books, pick one up and experience a personal sense of discovery." Silverstein died at his home in Key West, Florida on May 10, 1999.
Further Reading
Children's Literature Review, edited by Gerard J. Senick, Gale Research, 1983.
Something About the Author, edited by Anne Commire, Gale Research, 1983.
Twentieth-Century Children's Writers, edited by Laura Standley Berger, St. James Press, 1995.
Born Sheldon Alan Silverstein in 1930, in Chicago, IL; died on May 10, 1999, in Key West, FL; children: Matthew.
Renowned author, songwriter, cartoonist, and recording artist. As a musician, released first album, Hairy Jazz, on Elektra, 1959; created first album of funny songs, InsideFolk Songs, for Atlantic, 1962; recorded for Cadet label, 1965-1967; recorded the album A Boy NamedSue with Chet Atkins producing for RCA, 1968; recorded Freakin' at the Freaker's Ball with Dr. Hook and the Medicine Show for Columbia, 1969; recorded for various labels, 1972-1979. As a songwriter, wrote hits for Bobby Bare, Jerry Lee Lewis, Loretta Lynn, Johnny Cash, and Doctor Hook and the Medicine Show. Composed songs for several films and TV specials including The Moving Finger (1963), Ned Kelly (1970), Who IsHarry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (1971), Payday (1972), Thieves (1977), and Free to Be You and Me (1974). His album A Light in the Attic nominated for Best Recordings for Children Grammy Award, 1984; shared Edgar Award nomination with David Mamet for co-writing the film Things Change, 1989; received Oscar and Golden Globe nomination for Best Music, Original Song for his contribution to the film Postcards from the Edge, 1991.
Awards: Grammy Award, Best Country Song for "A Boy Named Sue," 1969; Grammy Award, Best Recording for Children for Where the Sidewalk Ends, 1984.
Best known as the author of several popular children's books, Shel Silverstein was a comedic renaissance man: a poet who crossed Ogden Nash's playfulness with Mad Magazine irreverence; a cartoonist who jacked up Dr. Seuss style fantasies with Jules Feiffer's neurotic social relevance; and a folk singer who wrote with the taboo-inducing bite of comic Lenny Bruce. Contradictory and difficult, he was a renowned children's author who was reportedly impatient with children, as well as a shy, private man whose work and image portrayed him as a bearded, shaved head attention-seeking extrovert. As a performer, the raspy, grating voice that so brilliantly underscored the nature of his spoken word pieces made him sound like an undisciplined madman when he sang. However, it was as a songwriter where he arguably made his biggest mark on pop culture. The songs he wrote for Doctor Hook and the Medicine Show made the band famous, the tunes he crafted for Bobby Bare provided the country singer a fresh commercial run, and Johnny Cash's late 1960s comeback was fueled by the mass popularity of Silverstein's tune "A Boy Named Sue."
Drew Cartoons for Playboy Born in the lower middle class neighborhood of Palmer Square in Chicago, Illinois, Silverstein grew up listening to the Grand Ole Opry radio broadcasts with his mother and expressed a special affection for the work of Ernest Tubb. According to a 1975 interview he gave Publisher's Weekly, his artistic leanings cropped up at an early age. "When I was a kid—twelve, fourteen—I would much rather have been a good baseball player or a hit with the girls. But, I couldn't play ball, I couldn't dance," he recalled. "So I started to draw and write." After graduating from Roosevelt High School, Silverstein studied art briefly at the University of Illinois before being "thrown out," and landing at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts where he "really learnt how to draw."
The drawing and writing habit followed him into his 1954-56 army stint, where he contributed cartoons to the Pacific edition of the soldier's newspaper Star & Stripes. A nonconformist to the end, many of his Take Ten cartoons were censored by offended and oversensitive military brass, but popular enough to be collected for the paperback Grab Your Socks and sold to appreciative foot soldiers. Despite various hassles over content, Star & Stripes helped Silverstein develop his craft. It would take a far more worldy publication to make him famous.
Initially, post-army life was a comedown for Silverstein, who had trouble selling his cartoons to regular state-side magazines. In 1956, the artist was introduced to Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner, who enjoyed a reputation as a rather perceptive and savvy cartoon editor. Silverstein, who flourished under Hefner's direction, was allowed to get as ribald and racy as he wanted. In
the process, he created a unique style laced with zany non sequiturs, satirical allusions, irony, and subtle pathos. A roving reporter, Silverstein also supplied the magazine with quirky illustrations and poems about the places he visited along with comically captioned photos. Greater fame as a family oriented author would transpire in decades to come, but Silverstein continued contributing to Playboy on and off until his death.
Began Recording in 1959 Silverstein's premier collection of non-army cartoons, Now Here's My Plan: A Book of Futilities, was published in 1960. Prior to that, he had made his first jaunt into the recording studio to cut the LP Hairy Jazz. Now an ultra-rare collectable, the album was notable because it featured only two of Silverstein's compositions, instead relying on zany Dixieland style renditions of such oldies as "If I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate" and a "Good Man Is Hard to Find." A poor seller, the disc led the way for the writer's further experiments in beatnik flavored folk and country music such as his hilarious 1961 release Inside Folk Songs. Never reaching mass audiences, it nonetheless provided excellent cover material for the Serendipity Singers, the Smothers Brothers, Johnny Cash—who loved the macabre hangman humor of "25 Minutes to Go"—and the Irish Rovers, who made "The Unicorn Song" a major pop hit later in the decade.
With the 1963 publication of Uncle Shelby's Story of Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back, Silverstein entered the realm of children's literature. Moderately successful at first, his children's books, poems, and cartoons would prove enduringly successful in the years to come. Part of Silverstein's appeal is that both his approach to humor and storytelling has an honest, forthright spirit seething behind every word and picture. Years later he explained part of his philosophy to the New York Times. "Happy endings, magic solutions in children's books create an alienation in the child who reads them. The child asks why don't I have this happiness thing you're telling me about, and comes to think when his joy stops that he has failed, that it won't come back."
Never completely committed to being a children's author, Silverstein spent most of his writing and recording career veering between tickling kids' funny bones and creating material designed to explode the myths behind social and sexual taboos. Indeed, in the course of one year he wrote both Uncle Shelby's A Giraffe and a Half and composed the decidedly adult tunes that comprised the LP I'm So Good That I Don't Have to Brag. From the latter sprang "The Mermaid," a top ten country hit for Bobby Bare, but for the most part Silverstein's recorded satire and ribaldry found a very small audience. His lack of popularity as a singer stemmed in part from his unusual raspy vocal style. That said, he claimed no one actually advised him not to sing. "Well, nobody gives me static about my voice," he told the Chicago Tribune in 1973. "They just aren't charmed by it. I don't see anybody running out and buying my records. But I like the way I sing." Regardless, Silverstein wouldn't enjoy lucrative mainstream success in music until someone else did the singing.
Wrote for Doctor Hook and Bobby Bare As a songwriter, Silverstein enjoyed a certain cache with modern folk-conscious artists such as Marianne Faithfull, who cut an emotionally resonant version of his "Ballad of Lucy Jordan." However, the songsmith really struck gold when country superstar Johnny Cash recorded his composition "A Boy Named Sue." The million-selling, Grammy-winning song not only gave The Man in Black a desperately needed career boost, but it opened the door for other country acts to record Silverstein's songs. In the years to come, Faron Young hit number four with "Your Time's Comin'," Jerry Lee Lewis scored a number two record with "Once More With Feeling," Loretta Lynn hit number one with "One's On The Way" and number four with "Hey Loretta," and Brenda Lee reached number four with "Wrong Ideas." But Silverstein's biggest breakthrough came when he began writing for an obscure and eccentric rock group known as Doctor Hook and the Medicine Show.
Doctor Hook and company stumbled into a big break when Silverstein had them record "The Last Morning" for his movie soundtrack Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying All Those Terrible Things About Me? "Shel and the producer of the record wanted to have the song recorded by an unknown band," recalled Doctor Hook guitarist Rik Elswit for Salon.com, "and there was nobody more unknown than these five maniacs playing to the drunks in a bar across the river Union [in New Jersey]. Shel loved them, and they quickly found themselves lifted out of obscurity and hanging out with movie stars. The producer assured them there's be money in it for them later. It wasn't the last time he'd be less than truthful to them, but they did get a recording contract out of it and Shel wrote three albums worth of songs for them."
More importantly, Dennis Locarriere's penetrating vocal style brought into play all the shades of wastoid humor and hippie heartbreak that Silverstein intended but could never deliver personally. As a result, the band's 1972 rendition of "Sylvia's Mother" was a million-selling hit. Better still, their whoop-it-up take on "The Cover of the Rolling Stone" not only made them stars, it gave the band a public identity—not to mention an actual cover story in Rolling Stone. The band repaid part of their personal debt to their benefactor by backing him on the 1972 Columbia disc Freakin' at the Freaker's Ball. Easily the best produced album of Silverstein's career, the lyrical content careens between doper humor, children's poetry, masochism, and advice about venereal disease, all done in a zany, fun-loving party style. Despite good word of mouth and a vigorous promotional campaign, the album barely sold.
In country music, Silverstein's soul mate was Bobby Bare. A clever singer-songwriter in his own right, Bare's laconic, comedic timing seemed tailor made for Silverstein's work. Together they made the first country concept album, Lullabyes, Legends, and Lies, which spawned two major hits: "Daddy What If" and "Marie Laveau," the latter complete with Silverstein's own voodoo-inspired shrieks. Songs that started out as poems—"The Winner" and "The Jogger," most notably—were hilarious as done by Bare, and the remarkably prolific Silverstein eventually contributed heavily to eight of Bare's albums. "Shel is the greatest lyricist there ever was," Bare told the author. "He worked harder than anybody I ever met. He would get involved with me doing these albums and wouldn't give up. We'd be mixing and mixing and I'd have to say, 'Shel, it's over, it's done, it's finished.' 'Well what about...?' 'It's done!' 'Well, we could do...' 'No, it's over! Let's go home. All it needs is out.'"
Also a Playwright When not doing music, Silverstein continued to churn out a mix of funny, philosophic children's books such as Where the Sidewalk Ends, The Giving Tree, and The Missing Piece, which garnered accolades and impressive sales. He stretched himself creatively by teaming with David Mamet to write a series of one-act plays billed as Oh Hell and create the Golden Globe-nominated screenplay for the 1989 film Things Change. But friends kept drawing him back into the musical arena. He composed most of the songs for folk veteran Bob Gibson's final album, and took on another country concept album with Bobby Bare featuring fellow middle-aged country-charts castoffs Jerry Reed, Mel Tillis, and Waylon Jennings (titled Old Dogs). It would be Silverstein's last major recording project. "We spent about a year in the studio working on that," recalled Bare. "We had a ton of fun. I was just devastated when he died. It just floored me because he was the last one I expected to go. He was the only one of all my friends who took care of himself. He ate right, he exercised, and everything."
At the time of his death, Silverstein seemed more content with his status as a children's author and entertainer. The financial rewards stemming from a lifetime of hard, compulsive work allowed him to keep homes in Sausalito, Greenwich Village, and Key West, and his success made him philosophical. "I am free to leave," he told the writer's biography series Something About the Author, "go wherever I please. Do whatever I want. I believe everyone should live like that. Don't be dependent on anyone else—man, woman, child, or dog. I want to go everywhere, look and listen to everything. You can go crazy with some of the wonderful stuff there is in life."
Selected discography
Solo albums Hairy Jazz, Elektra, 1959. Inside Folk Songs, Atlantic, 1962; reissued as Inside ShelbySingleton, Atlantic, 1970. I'm So Good That I Don't Have to Brag, Cadet, 1965. Drain My Brain, Cadet, 1967. A Boy Named Sue and His Other Country Songs, RCA, 1969. Ned Kelly: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack, United Artists, 1970; reissued on Rykodisc, 1998. Who Is Harry Kellerman and Why Is He Saying Those Terrible Things About Me? (soundtrack), Columbia, 1971. Freakin' at the Freaker's Ball, Columbia, 1972; reissued, 1999. Crouchin' on the Outside, Janus, 1973. Songs & Stories, Parachute, 1978. The Great Conch Train Robbery, Flying Fish, 1980; reissued, 1992. Where the Sidewalk Ends, Columbia, 1984; reissued, 1992. A Light in the Attic, Columbia, 1985; reissued, 1992.
With others (With Bob Gibson) Where I'm Bound: Bob Gibson and His12-String Guitar, Elektra, 1964. (With the Serendipity Singers) The Serendipity Singers Sing of Love, Lies and Flying Festoon, Phillips, 1965. (With Doctor Hook and the Medicine Show) Doctor Hook and the Medicine Show, Columbia, 1971. (With Doctor Hook and the Medicine Show) Sloppy Seconds, Columbia, 1972. (With Doctor Hook and the Medicine Show) Belly Up, Columbia, 1973. (With Bobby Bare) Bobby Bare Sings Lullabys, Legends andLies, RCA, 1973. (With Tompal Glaser) Tompal, MGM, 1974. (With Joanne Glasscock) Joanne Glasscock, A&M, 1974. (With Bobby Bare) Singin' in the Kitchen, RCA, 1975. (With Bobby Bare) Hard Time Hungrys, RCA, 1975. (With Doctor Hook and the Medicine Show) Bankrupt, Capitol, 1975. (With Doctor Hook and the Medicine Show) A Little Bit More, Capitol, 1976. (With Bobby Bare) The Winner and Other Losers, RCA, 1976. (With Bobby Bare) Bare, RCA, 1978. (With Bobby Bare) Down and Dirty, RCA, 1980. (With Bobby Bare) Drunk and Crazy, Columbia, 1980. (With Bobby Bare) Drinkin' from the Bottle, Singin' from theHeart, Columbia, 1983. (With Bob Gibson) Makin' a Mess: Bob Gibson Sings ShelSilverstein, Asylum, 1995. (With the Old Dogs) Old Dogs, Volume One, Atlantic, 1998. (With the Old Dogs) Old Dogs, Volume Two, Atlantic, 1998. (With Fred Koller) No Song Left to Sell, Gadfly, 2001. (With Pat Dailey) Underwaterland, Olympia, 2002. (With Doctor Hook and the Medicine Show) I Got Stoned andI Missed It: The Best from Shel Silverstein 1971-1979, Raven, 2003.
Sources Books McCloud, Barry, Definitive Country—The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Country Music and Its Performers, Perigree, 1995. Stambler, Irwin and Grelun Landon, Country Music: the Encyclopedia, St. Martin's Griffin, 1997. Smith, Ronald L., Comedy on Record: The Complete CriticalDiscography, Garland, 1988.
Shel Silverstein was one of those rare "multi-threat" artists -- composer, singer, cartoonist, illustrator, author -- with popular successes in all of those areas. Born in Chicago in 1930, Sheldon Alan Silverstein first attracted notice during his army service, in Japan and Korea, when he became a cartoonist for the U.S. Army publication Stars & Stripes. After returning to civilian life, he made a part of his living selling hot dogs at Chicago's two ballparks, and, according to a 1961 publisher's biography, set a record for the number of hot dogs sold at Thursday night games. He also began drawing cartoons for magazines such as Look, Sports Illustrated, and This Week, but it was when he joined Playboy magazine in mid-'50s that his name started getting known nationally. The magazine was then on the cutting edge of popular culture, and Silverstein's cartoons, which appeared in every issue from 1957 through the mid-'70s, with their satirical and provocative content, were some of the sharpest work in there.
During the late '50s, Silverstein also began exploring other areas of creativity, including writing and music. He recorded an LP, Hairy Jazz, for Elektra Records, which featured two original songs as well as his interpretations, as a singer, of a brace of jazz standards. It was the first of a dozen albums that Silverstein would cut in the course of an active career of more than two decades in music, cutting across all genres -- his next album, Inside Folk Songs, was a sharply comedic look at the early-'60s folk music boom and all of its attendant absurdities, which included the original version of "The Unicorn Song," and he followed that up with a trio of LPs for Chess Records' progressive label, Cadet Records. During this period, apart from his work as a magazine illustrator, Silverstein was busy as an author -- his cartoons appeared in book form, including Now Here's My Plan (Simon & Schuster) and Grab Your Socks (Ballantine), and he wrote a successful children's book, The Lion Book. Additionally, he appeared regularly on radio as a musician and actor on The Jean Shephard Show and as a regular with Roger Price on television. He also performed, as a singer and banjo player, as part of Papa Bue's Danish Viking New Orleans Jazz Band and as a solo act.
Amid his literary successes, which included Uncle Shelby ABZ Book, Uncle Shelby's Zoo, and Giraffe and a Half, all of which were aimed at children, Silverstein also established himself as a songwriter. A pair of his compositions, "The First Battalion" and "You're Wasting Your Time Trying to Make Me Settle Down," were recorded by Bob Gibson and Hamilton Camp, during the early '60s, but "The Unicorn Song," from his own Inside Folk Songs album, quickly achieved a life of its own when the Irish Rovers turned it into a huge international hit. The Brothers Four also found success recording Silverstein's "25 Minutes to Go," but it was in 1967, when Johnny Cash enjoyed massive success with his version of Silverstein's "A Boy Named Sue," that he achieved stardom as a songwriter. RCA Records subsequently issued an album of Silverstein's music using that song as the title track. Silverstein's most important album from this period, however, and his most successful was Freakin' at the Freakers Ball, released in 1973, in which he turned his jaundiced, satirical eyes toward the counterculture, hippies, and radicals of all stripes. A year before that, however, he saw a new round of success begin as a songwriter with "Sylvia's Mother," an over-the-top romantic lament that reached number five on the charts and turned its artists, Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show, into stars; the group, who played on Freakin' at the Freaker's Ball, subsequently hit even bigger with the satiric "The Cover of the Rolling Stone," also written by Silverstein, and the group was the major vehicle for Silverstein's music for the rest of the 1970s. His song "Don't Give a Dose to the One You Love Most," from Freakin' at the Freakers Ball, was later adopted as a theme in different anti-venereal disease campaigns.
Even as he was celebrated in sophisticated musical circles for his satirical and adult-oriented songs, however, Silverstein was a best-selling author of children's books, including Falling Up (1996), The Missing Piece (1982), Where the Sidewalk Ends (1981), A Light in the Attic (1981), and most enduring of all, The Giving Tree (1964), which has remained in print almost continuously for close to 40 years. He also wrote a play, Wild Life, that had its off-Broadway debut in 1983 to rave reviews, and he earned an Oscar nomination as a songwriter for "I'm Checking Out," which he wrote for the 1990 Mike Nichols film Postcards from the Edge. His songs were also used in such movies as Ned Kelly, Coal Miner's Daughter, Hearts of Fire, and Things Change. The world lost a unique and talented artist when Silverstein died of a heart attack at his home in Key West in May 1999. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi
Born in Chicago, Silverstein began drawing at age 12 by tracing the works of Al Capp.[3] He told Jean Mercier of Publishers Weekly: "When I was a kid—12 to 14, around there—I would much rather have been a good baseball player or a hit with the girls, but I couldn't play ball. I couldn't dance. Luckily, the girls didn't want me. Not much I could do about that. So I started to draw and to write. I was also lucky that I didn't have anybody to copy, be impressed by. I had developed my own style; I was creating before I knew there was a Thurber, a Benchley, a Price and a Steinberg. I never saw their work till I was around 30. By the time I got to where I was attracting girls, I was already into work, and it was more important to me. Not that I wouldn't rather make love, but the work has become a habit."[4]
Shel Silverstein's Playboy travelogues were collected in 2007.
He graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School and went on to attend the Art Institute of Chicago but left after one year. He was first published in the Roosevelt Torch (a student newspaper at Roosevelt University). In the military, his cartoons were published in Pacific Stars and Stripes, where he had originally been assigned to do layouts and paste-up. His first book, Take Ten, a compilation of his military Take Ten cartoon series was published by Pacific Stars and Stripes in 1955.
Returning to Chicago, Silverstein began submitting cartoons to magazines while also selling hot dogs at Chicago ballparks. His cartoons began appearing in Look, Sports Illustrated and This Week.[5]
Mass-market paperback readers across America were introduced to Silverstein in 1956 when Take Ten was reprinted by Ballantine Books as Grab Your Socks! with a foreword by Bill Mauldin.
In 1957, he became one of the leading cartoonists in Playboy, which sent him around the world to create an illustrated travel journal with reports from far-flung locales. During the 1950s and 1960s, he produced 23 installments called "Shel Silverstein Visits..." as a feature for Playboy. Employing a sketchbook format with typewriter-styled captions, he documented his own experiences at such locations as a New Jersey nudist colony, the Chicago White Sox training camp, San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district, Fire Island, Mexico, London, Paris, Spain and Africa. In a Swiss village, he drew himself complaining, "I'll give them 15 more minutes, and if nobody yodels, I'm going back to the hotel." These illustrated travel essays were collected by the publisher Fireside in Playboy's Silverstein Around the World, published in 2007 with a foreword by Hugh Hefner and an introduction by music journalist Mitch Myers.[6]
In a similar vein were his illustrations for John Sack's Report from Practically Nowhere (1959), a collection of humorous travel vignettes previously appearing in Playboy and other magazines.[7]
"Now here's my plan..."
"Now here's my plan...", Shel Silverstein's best known cartoon of the 1950s, became the title of his 1960 cartoon collection.
His best known cartoon of the 1950s was featured on the cover of his next cartoon collection, Now Here's My Plan: A Book of Futilities, published by Simon & Schuster in 1960. Silverstein biographer Lisa Rogak wrote:
The cartoon on the cover that provides the book's title would turn out to be one of his most famous and often-cited cartoons. In the cartoon, two prisoners are chained to the wall of a prison cell. Both their hands and feet are shackled. One says to the other, "Now here's my plan." Silverstein was both fascinated and distressed by the amount of analysis and commentary that almost immediately began to swirl around the cartoon. "A lot of people said it was a very pessimistic cartoon, which I don't think it is at all," he said. "There's a lot of hope even in a hopeless situation. They analyze it and question it. I did this cartoon because I had an idea about a funny situation about two guys."[2]
Silverstein's cartoons appeared in issues of Playboy from 1957 through the mid-1970s, and one of his Playboy features was expanded into Uncle Shelby's ABZ Book (Simon & Schuster, 1961), his first book of new, original material for adults. Because some of his material was unclear whether it was intended for adults or children, the 1985 reprint had a conspicuous cover label, "A Primer for Adults Only".[5]
Children's books
Silverstein's editor at Harper & Row, Ursula Nordstrom, encouraged Silverstein to write children's poetry. Silverstein said that he never studied the poetry of others and therefore developed his own quirky style, laid back and conversational, occasionally employing profanity and slang. In the 1975 Publishers Weekly interview, he was asked how he came to do children's books:
He is a strong, well-muscled, fit-looking man who wears blue jeans and a big cowboy hat. Though he has to be into his 40s (he's a Korean War veteran), he is also totally in touch with the contemporary scene... How, then, PW wanted to know, had he decided to get into children's books? "I didn't," Shel said, "I never planned to write or draw for kids. It was Tomi Ungerer, a friend of mine, who insisted—practically dragged me, kicking and screaming, into Ursula Nordstrom's office. And she convinced me that Tomi was right; I could do children's books." The relationship between Ursula Nordstrom and Shel Silverstein is mutually rewarding. He considers her a superb editor who knows when to leave an author-illustrator alone. Asked if he would change something he had produced on an editor's say-so, he answered with a flat "No." But he added: "Oh, I will take a suggestion for revision. I do eliminate certain things when I'm writing for children if I think only an adult will get the idea. Then I drop it, or save it. But editors messing with content? No." Had he been surprised by the astronomical record of The Giving Tree, his biggest seller to date and one of the most successful children's books in years? Another emphatic no. "What I do is good," he said. "I wouldn't let it out if I didn't think it was." But The Giving Tree, which has been selling steadily since it appeared ten years ago and has been translated into French, is not his own favorite among his books. "I like Uncle Shelby's ABZ, A Giraffe and a Half and Lafcadio, the Lion Who Shot Back—I think I like that one the most." The Giving Tree is one of those rare creations that seem to defy categorization, appealing equally to the reverent and the irreverent, the sophisticated and the simple. It tells of a tree and the use a man makes of it. When he is a boy, he plays in the tree's branches and enjoys its luscious fruit. Later, he courts his love under the tree and uses some of its wood to build a house for his family. Years pass; the man is now old and alone. The tree lets him take its trunk to carve a boat from, and the man rows away. Finally he returns for the last time to sit and rest on the stump of the tree—all that's left of it.[4][8]
Otto Penzler, in his crime anthology Murder for Revenge (1998), commented on Silverstein's versatility:
“
The phrase "Renaissance man" tends to get overused these days, but apply it to Shel Silverstein and it practically begins to seem inadequate. Not only has he produced with seeming ease country music hits and popular songs, but he's been equally successful at turning his hand to poetry, short stories, plays, and children's books. Moreover, his whimsically hip fables, beloved by readers of all ages, have made him a stalwart of bestseller lists. A Light in the Attic, most remarkably, showed the kind of staying power on the New York Times chart—two years, to be precise—thought that most of the biggest names (John Grisham, Stephen King and Michael Crichton) have never equaled for their own blockbusters. His unmistakable illustrative style is another crucial element to his appeal. Just as no writer sounds like Shel, no other artist's vision is as delightfully, sophisticatingly cockeyed. One can only marvel that he makes the time to respond so kindly to his friends' requests. In the following work, let's be glad he did. Drawing on his characteristic passion for list making, he shows how the deed is not just in the wish but in the sublimation.
”
This anthology was the second in a series, which also included Murder for Love (1996) and Murder and Obsession (1999). All three anthologies included Silverstein contributions. He did not really care to conform to any sort of norm, but he did want to leave his mark for others to be inspired by, as he told Publishers Weekly:
I would hope that people, no matter what age, would find something to identify with in my books, pick up one and experience a personal sense of discovery. That's great. I think that if you're creative person, you should just go about your business, do your work and not care about how it's received. I never read reviews because if you believe the good ones you have to believe the bad ones too. Not that I don't care about success. I do, but only because it lets me do what I want. I was always prepared for success but that means that I have to be prepared for failure too. I have an ego, I have ideas, I want to be articulate, to communicate but in my own way. People who say they create only for themselves and don't care if they are published... I hate to hear talk like that. If it's good, it's too good not to share. That's the way I feel about my work. So I'll keep on communicating, but only my way. Lots of things I won't do. I won't go on television because who am I talking to? Johnny Carson? The camera? Twenty million people I can't see? Uh-uh. And I won't give any more interviews.[4]
He wrote the lyrics and music for most of the Dr. Hook songs, including "The Cover of the Rolling Stone", "Freakin' at the Freakers' Ball," "Sylvia's Mother", "The Things I Didn't Say" and a cautionary song about venereal disease, "Don't Give a Dose to the One You Love Most".[6] He wrote many of the songs performed by Bobby Bare, including "Rosalie's Good Eats Café", "The Mermaid", "The Winner", "Warm and Free" and "Tequila Sheila". He co-wrote with Baxter Taylor "Marie Laveau", for which the songwriters received a 1975 BMI Award. "The Mermaid" was covered in 2005 by Great Big Sea, which released its version on The Hard and the Easy album.
Silverstein composed original music for several films and displayed a musical versatility in these projects, playing guitar, piano, saxophone and trombone. He wrote "In the Hills of Shiloh", a poignant song about the aftermath of the Civil War, which was recorded by The New Christy Minstrels, Judy Collins, Bobby Bare and others. The soundtrack of the 1970 film Ned Kelly features Silverstein songs performed by Waylon Jennings, Kris Kristofferson and others.[5]
Silverstein had a popular following on Dr. Demento's radio show. Among his best-known comedy songs were "Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout (Would Not Take The Garbage Out)", "The Smoke-Off" (a tale of a contest to determine who could roll—or smoke—marijuana joints faster), "I Got Stoned and I Missed It" and "Bury Me in My Shades". He wrote "The Father of a Boy Named Sue", in which he tells the story from the original song from the father's point of view, and the 1962 song "Boa Constrictor", sung by a man who is being swallowed by a snake (recorded by the folk group Peter, Paul, and Mary) although it is now better known as a children's playground chant.
A longtime friend of singer-songwriter Pat Dailey, Silverstein collaborated with him on the posthumously released Underwater Land album (2002). It contains 17 children's songs written and produced by Silverstein and sung by Dailey (with Silverstein joining him on a few tracks). The album features art by Silverstein.
In 2010, Bobby Bare and his son Bobby Bare Jr produced a CD called Twistable, Turnable Man: A Musical Tribute to the Songs of Shel Silverstein which was released on Sugar Hill Records. Artists covering Silverstein songs include Andrew Bird, My Morning Jacket and Bobby Bare, Jr.[9][10]
Theater
The Rising Sun Performance Company's production of "The Lifeboat is Sinking", from An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein
In January 1959, Look Charlie: A Short History of the Pratfall was a chaotic off-Broadway comedy staged by Silverstein, Jean Shepherd and Herb Gardner at New York's Orpheum Theatre on Second Avenue in the Lower East Side. Silverstein went on to write more than 100 one-act plays. The Devil and Billy Markham, published in Playboy in 1979, was later adapted into a solo one-act play that debuted on a double bill with Mamet's Bobby Gould in Hell (1989) with Dr. Hook vocalist Dennis Locorriere narrating. Karen Kohlhaas directed An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein, produced by New York's Atlantic Theater Company in September 2001 with a variety of short sketches:
"One Tennis Shoe"—Harvey claims his wife is becoming a bag lady.
"Bus Stop"—Irwin stands on a corner with a "bust stop" sign.
"Going Once"—A woman auctions herself.
"The Best Daddy"—Lisa's daddy shot the pony he got for her birthday.
"The Lifeboat is Sinking"—Jen and Sherwin play a game of Who-Would-You-Save-If—the family was drowning.
"Smile"—Bender plans to punish the man responsible for the phrase "Have a nice day".
"Watch and Dry"—Marianne discovers her laundry hasn't been cleaned.
"Thinking Up a New Name for the Act"—Pete thinks "meat and potatoes" is the perfect name for a vaudeville act.
"Buy One, Get One Free"—Hookers offer a golden opportunity.
"Blind Willie and the Talking Dog"—Blind Willie's talking dog argues they could profit from his talent.
A production of "An Adult Evening of Shel Silverstein" was produced by a Hofstra University theater group called, "The Spectrum Players" which was founded by Francis Ford Coppola in 1959. The production used a "victorian sailors on shore leave watching a play" aesthetic and used live rag-time and an MC character not in the script to transition between pieces. The production was directed by Richard Traub of Chicago, IL and starred several of Hofstra's most promising young actors; Nick Pacifico, Amanda Mac, Mike Quattrone, Ross Greenberg, Chelsea Lando, Allie Rightmeyer, and Paolo Perez as the MC.
In December 2001, Shel's Shorts was produced in repertory as two separate evenings under the titles Signs of Trouble and Shel Shocked by the Market Theater in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Signs of Trouble was directed by Wesley Savick, and Shel Shocked was directed by Larry Coen.
Personal life
Silverstein was born into a Jewish family and had two children.[11] His first child was daughter Shoshanna (Shanna), born June 30, 1970,[11][12] with Susan Hastings. Susan Hastings died five years later, on June 29, 1975, in Baltimore, Maryland. Shoshanna's aunt and uncle, Meg and Curtis Marshall, raised her from the age of five until her death of a cerebral aneurysm in Baltimore on April 24, 1982, at the age of 11.[11][12] She was attending the Bryn Mawr School in Baltimore at the time of her death. Silverstein dedicated his 1983 reprint of Who Wants a Cheap Rhinoceros to the Marshalls. A Light in the Attic was dedicated to Shanna, and Silverstein drew the sign with a flower attached. Shoshanna means lily or rose in Hebrew. Silverstein's second child was his son Matthew, born in 1983.[11][12] Silverstein's 1996 Falling Up was dedicated to Matt.
Later in life, Silverstein divided time between his favorite places such as Greenwich Village, Key West, Martha’s Vineyard and Sausalito, California. He continued to create plays, songs, poems, stories and drawings until he died at his home in Key West, Florida on May 8 or 9, 1999.[13] of a heart attack. His body was discovered by two housekeepers the following Monday, May 10. It was reported that he could have died on either day that weekend.
Every Thing On It (HarperCollins, 2011) (Published posthumously)
Silverstein believed that written works needed to be read on paper—the correct paper for the particular work. He usually would not allow his poems and stories to be published unless he could choose the type, size, shape, color and quality of the paper. Being a book collector, he took seriously the feel of the paper, the look of the book, the fonts and the binding. Most of his books did not have paperback editions because he did not want his work to be diminished in any way.
^ abc Rogak, Lisa. A Boy Named Shel: The Life and Times of Shel Silverstein. Thomas Dunne Books (imprint of St. Martin's Press), 2007. ISBN 0-312-35359-6
^ Studs Terkel interview, WFMT, December 12, 1963.
^ abc Mercier, Jean F. "Shel Silverstein", Publishers Weekly, February 24, 1975.
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