I first discovered the phenomenon of Dora Hall when I purchased a package of Solo Cups in the 80’s and sent in the attached card for a free video. I got “Dora’s World,” a vanity project starring the wife of Solo Cups founder, Leo Hulseman. Unfortunately, my video hasn’t survived the years, but thank god for YouTube. I found two great samples of Dora Hall’s musical “gifts”: the first is a rock medley (including “Rocky Raccoon” and “Hey Jude”) she sings with fellow rock n’ rollers, Phil Harris, Rich Little, Frank Sinatra Jr. and an unidentified man who must’ve made Laura Nyro turn over in her grave with his brief but not brief enough version of “Eli’s Coming.”
If you just wanna check out Dora in a solo number, click on the following link to see the show-stopping, “All He’d Say was ‘Uh-huh.'”
And for some more background info on Dora, go to:
http://www.kenbmiller.com/satpostman/articles/video/video.html
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Allee Willis
I came into the world of Dora Hall much later, actually only a few years ago when I found a mint-in-cover Disco 45 of hers. I loved the cover so much and she looked so twisted and it was, after all, a Disco record but I never actually put it on and it’s buried in a box somewhere down in my basement. Your post has me thinking that one of these nights I might be crawling around down there looking for it because now it’s a MUST HEAR.
Who knew that Dora had the bucks? Herein lies the importance of being married to someone rich (or having lots of pocket change of your own). You get to make records and do variety shows in between throwing dinner parties for your rich husband’s cronies. Who knew she had a TV Special?
The first clip kills me. Dora’s dress is sensational. Though I’m still reeling from the fact that she actually had a career, which I never suspected when I plunked down the 30 cents it took to win one of her records on eBay.
My first job in the music industry was as a copywriter at Columbia/Epic Records in NYC. Laura Nyro was the first artist I was assigned to and Eli and the 13th Confession” was one of the first albums that I wrote all the ads and commercials for. I’ve probably heard “Eli’s Coming” 96,000 times in my life. The unidentified man’s brief but not brief enough version of that song is so toyed with it’s almost unrecognizable had he not sung the title. Had Laura Nyro seen this when it aired it would have drove her to an early death. She did not like her songs messed with.
And if this is the biggest gig that Frank Sinatra Jr. could get he should have called Dora’s husband for a part-time gig.
As for Dora’s solo number, her dancing is appropriately white and that’s the kind of specialty songs that made me never watch those kind of TV specials in the 60s and 70s.
Thanks so much for this detailed post. It always blows my mind when I think I know everything there is know about someone and then discover that I know absolutely nothing at all.