On the Griddle with Frye

Make no mistake about it, David Frye is a master impressionist who has what it takes these days: Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Hubert Humphrey, William F. Buckley, George Wallace and Nelson Rockefeller. In the world of impressions and mimicry, where a good line is usually the shortest distance between Jimmy Stewart and Gregory Peck, Frye bobs and weaves among the political heavyweights armed with perfect pitch and deadly accuracy.

Frye is everywhere on TV these days, but nowhere is his extensive range of characters more fully revealed than in his first record album, I Am the President. The album has all those old political favorites plus Spiro Agnew, David Susskind and Henry Fonda, all right on target. Nixon's singsong baritone is so close to the mark, it makes one hope Frye never gets near the hot line. L.B.J.'s drawl reeks of chili down on the Pedernales, while Nelson Rockefeller's gravelly voice sounds as if he had taken a speech-improvement course and swallowed the pebbles.

If the album has any shortcoming it lies in Spiro Agnew, and that suffers mostly by comparison. Frye is so dead-on with other politicos they become frighteningly real. Spiro, meanwhile, comes off as a slapstick caricature, a fey idiot who can't tell time.

Fruited Plains. For the most part, however, the record (written by a team of comedy writers headed by Gary Belkin) is almost as realistic as an official biography. "Well, you can't lose them all," Nixon intones when told he has won the election. "I see spacious skies and fruited plains and amber waves of grain" is the way Frye has Nixon hallucinating on marijuana.

Released just three weeks ago by Elektra, which normally records the likes of the Doors, Judy Collins and the Incredible String Band, the album has already sold nearly a quarter-million copies. In addition to the hit record, life for Frye these days is one television performance after another plus college campus dates, nightclubs, Las Vegas and state fairs in the summer.

Strangely, he is not all that anxious to move into other fields. "I'm going to concentrate on these people I'm doing." Besides, "I'd like to squeeze the lemon now." Which is exactly what he's doing. Estimates are that he'll make upwards of $250,000 in 1970. Not that Frye intends to rest on his repertory, though: "Attorney General and Mrs. Mitchell will be on the next album." Make no mistake about that.

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