The Masked Marauders

The Masked Marauders

Deity / Reprise 6378

This spoof LP, produced following a spoof review in Rolling Stone, was recorded by The Cleanliness and Godliness Skiffle Band together with other musicians.

Tracks

• I Can't Get No Nookie
• Duke of Earl
• Cow Pie
• I Am the Japanese Sandman
• The Book of Love
• Later
• More or Less Hudson's Bay Again
• Season of the Witch
• Saturday Night at the Cow Palace

The musicians involved were possibly;

• Phil Marsh - guitar, vocals
• Hank Bradley - fiddle, mandolin, harmonica, vocals
• Brian Voorhees - harmonica, guitar, vocals
• Gary Salzman - steel guitar
• Langdon Winner - piano, vocals
• Vic Smith - bass
• Richard Saunders - bass
• Anne Rizzo - drums
• Mark Voorhees - drums, vocals
• Anne Johnston - percussion, vocals
• Allen Chance - vocals

This album had it's beginnings in a spoof album review in Rolling Stone.

The fictitious review, by Greil Marcus, was of a bootleg album by The Masked Marauders, supposedly featuring a super group that involved, among others, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison. It claimed that the album was released without any information as the participants wanted to remain anonymous.

The joke though backfired as many readers of the review believed it and started searching for the album. Rather than admitting the truth at this point Marcus and Langdon Winner got the musicians of the Berkeley group, The Cleanliness and Godliness Skiffle Band, to record songs with titles used in the review and to make it 'convincing' by imitating the various supposed famous participants.

A single and LP were released by Warner Brother / Reprise but issued as if on the Deity label - the non-existent label that was cited in the review. Though at this point Rolling Stone did publicise the fact that it was a spoof release.

Related releases

One single was released in conjunction with this album;

• I Can't Get No Nookie / Cow Pie, The Masked Marauders, 1969, Deity 0870

• The Complete Deity Recordings, The Masked Marauders, 2006

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