Janet Klein projects an image of polished retro elegance through her smooth bob—typically adorned with a precisely placed bloom or two—along with period frocks, luminous features, and a personalized ukulele. At first glance this presentation could register as playful pastiche, a knowing nod to suggestive turn-of-the-century imagery. Yet her singing dispels any such notion; the voice carries neither cartoonish affect nor brash theatricality. Once the instrument enters, it becomes evident that the ukulele functions as a genuine, expressive vehicle rather than mere stage accessory. Drawing from an ever-growing catalog of what she describes as “obscure, lovely, and naughty songs from the ’10s, ’20s, and ’30s,” Klein operates as a diligent excavator of early recorded song within the frame of a Gibson Girl silhouette.
Her childhood unfolded in San Bernardino, California, during the 1970s, where her father, Stephen Klein—a teacher and experimental animator—introduced her primarily to the music of Frank Zappa and the classical canon. Equally formative were stories from her grandparents, especially Marty Klein’s accounts of working as a stage magician in 1930s New York, which planted an enduring curiosity about American popular culture before World War II. After relocating to Los Angeles for college in the early 1980s, Klein pursued both vintage jazz recordings and the graphic idioms of that period. Through the former she encountered pioneering women such as Lil Hardin Armstrong—Louis Armstrong’s wife and early manager—and Blanche Calloway, sister of Cab. The latter interest prompted her to amass sheet music spanning the 1800s through the jazz age, initially for its visual appeal before the songs themselves became the focus.
During this period she encountered Robert Loveless, a post-punk musician associated with Savage Republic and 17 Pygmies, whose parallel fascination with early twentieth-century aesthetics reinforced her own explorations. Although increasingly drawn to the repertoire, Klein initially channeled her energies elsewhere: into poetry, painting, and performance art, including the 1989 self-published chapbook When They Kiss I Leave. She also took up the ukulele; as facility grew, selected period numbers began appearing within her poetry readings. Her naturally breathy alto proved ideally matched to material from the teens and twenties. By 1996 the spoken-word component had been set aside entirely, leaving performances centered on faithful, unadorned renditions that honored the source material without descending into camp.
This restrained approach foregrounds lyric craft, allowing intricate rhymes and verbal wit to register clearly. The debut album, Come Into My Parlor (1998), is essentially a solo effort, with Klein’s voice and ukulele occasionally framed by John Reynolds’s Django Reinhardt-inflected guitar and producer Loveless’s understated accordion, mandolin, harmonica, and triangle contributions.
Following that recording, Klein assembled a flexible ensemble, the Parlor Boys. The group can swell to a dozen players yet typically comprises six or seven; core participants include Reynolds—grandson of 1930s comic actress Zasu Pitts—alongside two founding members of Robert Crumb’s 1970s trad-jazz outfit the Cheap Suit Serenaders, Robert Armstrong (Hawaiian steel guitar, accordion, musical saw) and Tom Marion (guitar, mandolin, banjo), pianist and cornetist Brad Kay, and, intermittently, musicologist, author, broadcaster, and one-time British Invasion teen idol Ian Whitcomb on ukulele and accordion.
The follow-up, Paradise Wobble (2000), issued under the name Janet Klein and Her Parlor Boys and similarly wrapped in meticulously recreated period imagery, reflects the ensemble’s breadth. It incorporates several Hawaiian-tinged instrumentals spotlighting Armstrong as well as a guest vocal from Whitcomb on the singular 1930 obscurity “Tain’t No Sin to Take Off Your Skin and Rattle Around in Your Bones,” whose title later surfaced in a William S. Burroughs poem.
