Posted inArts & Entertainment

Tom Lehrer and Santa Cruz: Sleuthing the trail of one of America’s premier satirists

In the 1950s and ‘60s, just as the Baby Boom was booming, the man Dr. Demento called “the most brilliant song satirist ever recorded” recorded 37 songs, played 109 performances and sold hundreds of thousands of records without getting played on the radio – the records sold by word of mouth. For many years, he spent half his year in Santa Cruz, and taught math in the early days of UCSC. At 96, he now lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. But what were his days here like? Man about town Richard Stockton tracks his local legacy.

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