The Real Dirty Female Comedians of the Cold War Era
Billboard in 1961 ran a news item about comedian Belle Barth's move to a new record label. The article called her "the queen of the sophisticated LPs."
"Sophisticated" must have meant something different back then. The record industry had hijacked and demeaned the word to work against itself, like certain movies and magazines did for "adult." Barth's specialty was raunchy sex talk. She was arrested for obscenity in 1953 and opened her 1960 album, If I Embarrass You, Tell Y