PHILADELPHIA — Sixty-two years ago, Allan Sherman was all the rage.

Sherman, the singer and comedian who specialized in wry song parodies rife with references to Jewish culture, released three albums that all topped the Billboard charts in 1963.

The popularity of “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah (A Letter from Camp),” a song about a spoiled child writing home from summer camp, set to music from Amilcare Ponchielli’s opera "La Gioconda," made his "My Son, the Nut" the fastest-selling album ever up to that point in time.

And judging from the lineup that will perform at "Glory, Glory Allan Sherman: A Celebrity Music and Comedy Salute," the tribute concert being staged at the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History on Thursday, affection for Sherman, who died in 1973 at age 48, remains strong with musicians across a wide range of genres.

The A-list lineup includes performance artist Laurie Anderson, centenarian Sun Ra Arkestra leader and free jazz sax player Marshall Allen, NRBQ pianist Terry Adams, English songwriter and novelist (and Philly resident) Wesley Stace, Dead Milkmen vocalist Rodney Anonymous, Hooters singer-guitarist Eric Bazilian, and Low Cut Connie bandleader Adam Weiner.

Bringing these eclectic talents together in tribute to the musical humorist who’s been called “Weird Al Yankovic’s Founding ‘Faddah’” is Bucks County native Jonathan Stein, who co-produced the show with his partner Jess Gonchor.

(In 2014, Yankovic’s "Mandatory Fun" became the first comedy album to top the Billboard pop chart since "My Son, the Nut" in 1963.)

A handful of VIP-level tickets remain for the otherwise sold-out 8 p.m. “Glory, Glory.” By popular demand, a 3 p.m. dress rehearsal show has been added, for which tickets are available.

Stein says Philadelphia is “a weird hotbed” of Sherman popularity, partly because Kathy O’Connell, host of Kids Corner on WXPN-FM (88.5), has been playing his music since the show’s inception in 1988.

For over a decade, Stein has been working on an in-and-out-of- development project aiming to bringing a biopic of the pudgy, unlikely pop star who chronicled Jewish life in songs like “Sarah Jackman“ (set to the tune of “Frere Jacques” and “Harvey and Sheila” (based on “Hava Nagila”).

Stein is also a fan of Hal Willner, the Philadelphia-born producer who specialized in bringing musicians of diverse backgrounds together to sing sea chanteys, or honor William S. Burroughs, or recast music from Walt Disney films.

The poster for “Glory, Glory” announces the concert is presented “in conjunction with the spirit of Hal Willner,” who died in the spring of 2020 in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. The eight-piece house band at the show will be led by trumpeter and bandleader Stephen Bernstein, a longtime Willner associate.

Willner, the longtime "Saturday Night Live" sketch music coordinator, was the son of a Polish Holocaust survivor who co-owned Hymie’s Deli in Merion Station. In 2014, Willner put on a Sherman tribute in New York that featured many “Glory, Glory” guests, plus luminaries like the composer Philip Glass.

The diversity of the “Glory, Glory” bill reflects Willner’s try-anything aesthetic. It includes Robert Smigel, the comic behind Triumph the Insult Comic Dog; actress Chloe Webb, who played Sid Vicious’ Philadelphia-born girlfriend Nancy Spungen in "Sid & Nancy"; and “banshee mandolin” player John Kruth.

“Hal had this Rolodex, and people just wanted to do his shows,” says Stein. “When we started talking about doing this, and Hal’s name was invoked, people started coming on board left and right, because they know what kind of show it’s going to be, and they want to be a part of it.”

When Dan Samuels, the Weitzman’s director of public programs, first got Stein’s pitch to bring the Sherman show to the museum he thought, “This is crazy!” but in the best possible way, he says, while on a Zoom call with Stein this week.

Generations of fans “came up on Allan Sherman, or their parents had the records in the house, or their grandparents had the records in the house, or maybe because they just know [“Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah”],” says Samuels, who also grew up in Bucks County. “They’re going to be surprised when they realize the version of the songs are not going to sound like they did on the records. They might be really surprised when they hear Marshall Allen.”

Stein built the lineup for the Sherman show with the help of Stace, the songwriter who has also been known as John Wesley Harding who brings disparate musicians and other creative types together in his own “Cabinet of Wonders” performance series.

Stace counted himself in, and connected Stein with the Hooters’ Bazilian and Low Cut Connie’s Weiner. “They both e-mailed me back and said: ‘I’m in,’” Stein says. “And those three right there are the beginnings of a great hometown show.”

Almost all of the artists on Stein’s wish list came back with a yes, including pianist Adams, who worked with Willner on many projects, and Anderson, who also teamed with Willner and is the widow of Willner’s close friend Lou Reed.

Just this week, however, he did get “a very kind rejection letter from the Phillie Phanatic. He expressed his regrets and “apologized that he’s already booked,” Stein says.

Another Philly icon that Stein did get is the Dead Milkmen’s Anonymous. He’ll sing a song called “I’m a Punk.”

Sherman didn’t write it. Dr. Seuss did.

“Alan voiced 'The Cat in the Hat' for CBS in 1971,” Stein says. “It’s just a really clever, pre-punk punk song, with the guy declaring that he’s just a punk,” which rhymes with “a crutunkulous shnunk!”

“When I asked him,” Stein says, “he said ‘Oh my God, I’m so honored to do it. My Mom and I would sing Allan Sherman songs together all the time.”

Stace’s history with Sherman goes back to his mid-‘70s schoolboy days in England. At a friend’s house, a pile of Velvet Underground, David Bowie, T-Rex and Roxy Music records gave him “my first proper education in music,” he says. And there was also one Allan Sherman album, "My Son, the Celebrity," the second hit LP from 1963.

“That’s the one with the liner notes that says ‘the family are croquet players, with mallets toward none,’” says Stace, with a laugh. “I know that album inside out.”

At the Sherman tribute, Stace will perform “Won’t You Please Come Home, Disraeli” sung in the character of Queen Victoria to the tune of “Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey,” and “Me,” in which Sherman described his physique as “a carcass” dressed in “the best from Neiman Marcus.”

“They’re both very funny songs,” Stace says. “I hope to do them justice.”

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“Glory, Glory Allan Sherman: A Celebrity Music and Comedy Salute,” Dec. 4, 8 p.m., Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History, 101 South Independence Mall East. There is also a 3 p.m. dress rehearsal. theweitzman.org

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