Where on the internet,  can I find recordings or scripts of their act.  
?c

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Request for Question Clarification by efn-ga on 05 Jan 2004 23:28 PST

Hi wonga-ga,

Gallagher and Shean's biggest hit by far was a comic song, "Mister
Gallagher and Mister Shean."  Both lyrics and audio for this song are
available on the Internet, but there seems to be little other
information about the content of their act.  Would information about
this song alone be a satisfactory answer?

--efn

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Clarification of Question by wonga-ga on 06 Jan 2004 20:06 PST

Gallagher and Shean's biggest hit by far was a comic song, "Mister
                Gallagher and Mister Shean."  Both lyrics and audio
for this song are
                available on the Internet,

This would be fine. Thank you very much.  Let me know where to go on the net.

wonga-ga

Hi wonga-ga,

The vaudeville team of Ed Gallagher and Al Shean was active from 1910
to 1925.  By far their biggest hit was the song "Mister Gallagher and
Mister Shean."  They introduced it in 1921, and it became popular when
they performed it in the Ziegfeld Follies of 1922.  The song was so
popular that even though it specifically named Gallagher and Shean,
many other acts also performed it.  It didn't have a fixed set of
lyrics--they changed the words all the time.

The most complete biographical information I found was on this page
from the Vaudeville Memories web site.  It also links to audio so you
can hear the song.

http://members.rogers.com/vaudeville/vaudgs.htm

Gallagher and Shean's 1922 recording of the song had it on both sides
of the record, with different lyrics.  The A side was subtitled
"Positively, Mr. Gallagher?" and the B side was subtitled,
"Absolutely, Mr. Shean!"  (Some sources show these as the titles.) 
You can hear the entire B side on the Internet, courtesy of
Archeophone Records.

http://www.archeophone.com/Resources/Recordings/1102.html

The Heptune Jazz and Blues Lyrics site has a faithful transcription of
the lyrics on this recording:

http://www.heptune.com/mrgallag.html

For a sample cover version of the song performed by other artists, you
can listen to a recording by Edward Meeker and Steve Porter, courtesy
of the Library of Congress.

http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/papr:@filreq(@field(NUMBER+@band(edrs+50970r))+@field(COLLID+edison))

Among the acts that performed the Gallagher and Shean song was the
Marx Brothers.  Al Shean, originally named Adolph Schönberg, was their
uncle, the younger brother of their mother Minnie.  This page from the
Marxology web site has a set of lyrics for the song and some
background information.

http://w1.660.telia.com/~u66005454/shean.htm

The Musicals101.com site has another set of lyrics.

http://www.musicals101.com/lygallagher.htm


Search Strategy

gallagher shean

The tricky part was finding the right spelling of "Shean."


Thank you for an entertaining question.  If you need any further
information, please ask for a clarification.

--efn

I thought I was very good with Google searches.  You guys are the
best. I bow to you.
I have been searching for months for this answer.