John Valby

After spending an evening with John Valby,audiences find themselves wanting more and more of him. What makes Valby so unique and entertaining is his uncommon rapport with the audience and his ability to mix his musical Talent with a mad-cap variety of "Dirty Ditties". Few people can resist laughing at songs that would have earned them a mouthful of soap when they were children.

 

Valby's repertoire is composed of popular songs, limericks, classical arrangements, and his own original creations. Valby has made a career out of poking fun at his audiences, stretching the limits of free speech and accepted good taste and satirizing current events from behind the piano. When he's not playing and singing, he yells obscenities: the audience yells back and everyone has a good time.

 

The best way to describe John Valby is to blend the following performers together. Allen Sherman, Spike Jones, Lenny Bruce, and Wierd Al Yankovic all topped off with the Dirt of Redd Foxx, only better. Mr. Valby's background started out innocently enough. As a teenager, he attended Mcquaid Jesuit High School in Rochester MY Where the Catholic nuns taught him how to play the piano. Valby attributes his love of music to his father Richard, an accomplished violinist.

 

The "Dirt singing" didn't start until Valby got to Middlebury College in Vermont. Majoring in Philosophy, he created a few compositions for his fraternity brothers, many of which are still being sung today as part of his Legacy. According to Mr. Valby, "I did three dirty songs one night & pretty soon the power of "DIRT" pushed most everything else out. I became a mirror for the audience and the audience turned out to be 20 times DIRTIER than me."

 

Mr. Valby used to get annoyed that while he was on stage baring his soul to the audience, the crowds would yell, "sing more DIRT!" His manager named him "Dr. Dirty" and the rest is history. Mr. Valby goes on to say, "I'm performing a service. I can't get too egotistical about what the audience should hear. "I'm supposed to entertain." And entertain he does.