The Complete Bert & I
Robert Bryan
Marshall Dodge
9781944762247
4 pages
Islandport Press
Overview
Sixty years ago, Marshall Dodge and Robert Bryan created Bert and I while studying at Yale in order to entertain their classmates. The two amateur storytellers soon recorded a short ten-inch album of eleven stories for friends and family, but ultimately pressed just a few hundred. However, growing popularity prompted them in 1958 to record and release the seminal commercial album of New England humor and storytelling, called Bert and I . . . And Other Stories from Down East. Sixty years later, the work of Dodge and Bryan epitomizes Maine humor and has inspired countless humorists. The original album is included in this CD set, along with More Bert and I, The Return of Bert and I, Bert and I Stem Inflation, Bert and I . . . On Stage, and Maine Pot-Hellion. This is the ultimate collection for Bert and I fans and lovers of classic regional humor.
Author Bio
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. Unlike Dodge, who continued as a full-time performer, Rev. Robert A. Bryan (1931-2018) 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. Bryan passed away in 2018. Marshall Dodge (1935-1982) stands undeniably as a godfather of Downeast humor, bringing 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 forty-five.
