Comedy Record Corner

[JSngry]

...if not all at once.

Oh well! Onward!

Been "revisiting" some nearly forgotten faorites of many moons ago, and found that two still pack laugh power in spite of their unquestionably "dated" content and style:

and

It dawned on me that America (which is all I know about, other countries please expand the scope) has a history of recorded comedy that is rich, diverse, innovative/stoopid. sublime/tasteless, as its people.

Such as...

Wickedly funny recordings in spite of any number of things to have second thoughts about...again, much like America.

It seems like the "modern era" of comedy records began with the Bruce/Sahl/Berman trio (and in that order of ascending popular acceptance at the time) & continued to, when...Dice Clay? Bill Hicks? Int he interim, comedy records sprung up out of everywhere by everybody (or so it seemed). There must have been an audience.

So, if it pleases the board, let's begin looking at, not comedians, but their records, and with the same attention to detail as we do musical records, which is to say, all over the map!

[BillF]

I own just one: The Real Lennie Bruce, a Fantasy twofer:

Ones I remember enjoying from around 1960 include Mort Sahl, The Future Lies Ahead

and George Crater's wonderful jazz humor on Out of My Head on Riverside.

[Jazzmoose]

Much of my time on earth as a teenager was spent with these two, which I guess explains a lot...

[BillF]

I seem to remember LP inner sleeves with the legend:

THE JAZZ OF AMERICA IS ON VERVE

THE WIT OF AMERICA IS ON VERVE

[Teasing the Korean]

I am STILL looking for those hard to find 1950S records by THE GREAT BROTHER THEODORE. They don't show up anywhere. One was on either Kapp or Cadence, I forget which. Has anyone seen them on a blog or anything?

[Mark Stryker]

Interesting topic. In the early '90s, when I was working for the South Bend Tribune, my first newspaper job, I wrote a story about comedy records that was prompted by a rash of reissues from Robert Klein, David Steinberg, Eddie Murhphy. National Lampoon, Lenny Bruce, Brooks/Reiner and some others. It was more or less a result of the compact disc boom and not a precursor to a renaissance of any kind, but it was an opportunity to look at the development of the genre. Some of the details below are cribbed from that story from (gulp) 1992.

As Jim suggests, the modern era started in the '50s with Sahl, Bruce, Berman -- the result of an interesting confluence of the emergence of the long-playing LP and a new wave of sophisticated comedians of various stripes that captured the stirrings of a backlash against the social and political conformity of the era. Sahl's "The Future Lies Ahead" (Verve) from 1958 was ground zero, the first spoken-word comedy LP taped in front of a live audience (the hungry i in San Francisco, of course) -- though I think a bootleg Sahl recording may have been released previously. Berman had the first true hit, "Inside Shelley Berman" (Verve) entering the Billboard Top. 40 in April 1959, peaking at No. 2 for five weeks and staying in the top 40 for 46 weeks and the top 150 for more than two years. By July 16, 1961, there were more than a dozen comedy albums in the top 150, half of them in the top 40.

I talked to Bob Newhart, one of my great heroes -- never forget how slyly subverse and prescient early pieces like "The Retirement Party" and "Abe Lincoln" were or the inspired brilliance of, say, the one-sided phone conversation with Abner Doubleday about the invention of baseball. Anyway, Newhart said some interesting things about those days, starting with the fact that the take-my-wife-please aesthetic of the earlier generation of comedians didn't appeal to the college crowd who bought records: "They'd buy our records and they'd get pizza and a six-pack and they'd sit around somebody's living room and that was their nightclub. And we were all dealing with areas they were concerned about. They always called the '50s the 'dead '50s' but I always thought there was a lot of revolt and anti-system feeling. I don't think everybody rolled over and played dead. God knows Lenny was dealing with issues and Mike and Elaine with the telephone company routine and other larges monoliths and I was attacking the corporation -- we were talking to their concerns."

Newhart's "The Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart," released in early 1960, was a pop culture landmark, selling more than 700,000 copies, holding the No. 1 spot on the Billboard pop charts for 14 weeks and winning the Grammy for Album of the Year. Newhart told me that it was selling so fast at one point that Warner Bros. ran out of record jackets and sold thousands in plain white sleeves with IOU's for the jackets. As an aside, Newhart famously had never worked a true club until the week in Houston where the record was taped. He was a real neophyte. The only material he had was what was on the record, so on the first night, when he finished his first set and the people were cheering and going nuts, the MC/owner at the club told him, "You gotta go back out there and do an encore" and Newhwart said, "I don't have any more," and the guy practically pushed him back on stage and Newhart looked at the crowd and said, "Which one would you like to hear again?") When "The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back" was released later in 1960, it reached No. 1 and for a while Newhart held both the No. 1 and No. 2 spots, a feat not equaled until Guns N Roses did it in the early '90s. Newhart later was quoted saying, "Well, you always hate to lose a record but at least it went to a friend."

The intensity of the comedy record craze cooled after the Kennedy assanation but the genre remained a force until the late '70s and early '80s, a key part of the public profiles of Cosby, Pryor, Carlin, Klein, Steve Martin (first to achieve platinum sales for "Let's Get Small," Cheech/Chong (ugh). For folks like Pryor and Carlin it was a way of documenting material that they, to paraphrase Carlin, couldn't say on televison. What killed the genre was the rise of stand-up shows on cable TV, which became ubiquitous in the '80s, and the HBO concert specials in which comedians could world uncensored. Still, some folks continued to do well in the CD era. Dice Clay (double ugh), Adam Sandler, Chris Rock and the Blue-Collar guys like Jeff Foxworthy sold a lot of product. and records were still an outlet for an underground guy like Bill Hicks.

I mentioned in another thread recently a book called "Laughter on Record: A Complete Discography," by Warren Debenham, published by Scarecrow Press in 1988. http://www.amazon.co...74614800&sr=1-1

It's quite remarkable. 4,367 listings -- from A&P Players' "I Love Jimmy Carter, Jimy Carter" (A&P AP-1001) to Ziegfeld's "Ziegfeld Girl." (C.I.F. 3006; two comedy cuts). It's also indexed by subject, which is interesting. The book doesn't include CDs and it's not annotated, but if you're interested in knowing what's out there, it has it all.

Anyway, onward.

Edited June 27, 2010 by Mark Stryker

[Shawn]

one of my very first records, I was probably 3 or 4.

A masterpiece. "Chicken Heart", "Tonsils", "Go Karts", etc. I found a used copy on vinyl recently and it's just as funny today as ever.

The other comedy records that had a major impact on me, for better or worse I don't know...

I have this entire album memorized, I could probably recite it verbatim.

"...but I did not venture into that Dark Alleyway. Cause it might not have been the voice of God...but 2 or 3 N*s with a baseball bat."

[carnivore]

4

As Jim suggests, the modern era started in the '50s with Sahl, Bruce, Berman -- the result of an interesting confluence of the emergence of the long-playing LP and a new wave of sophisticated comedians of various stripes that captured the stirrings of a backlash against the social and political conformity of the era. Sahl's "The Future Lies Ahead" (Verve) from 1958 was ground zero, the first spoken-word comedy LP taped in front of a live audience (the hungry i in San Francisco, of course) -- though I think a bootleg Sahl recording may have been released previously. Berman had the first true hit, "Inside Shelley Berman" (Verve) entering the Billboard Top. 40 in April 1959, peaking at No. 2 for five weeks and staying in the top 40 for 46 weeks and the top 150 for more than two years. By July 16, 1961, there were more than a dozen comedy albums in the top 150, half of them in the top 40.

1

Mark - I think much credit must also be given to the now almost forgotten Stan Freberg whose satirizing of hit records of the day, and tv shows like 'Dragnet' were such a break-through in the early 50s...even on 78 rpm! Although best known for things like ' The Banana Boat Song' and 'Sh-boom' his real genius was apparent in his short lived radio series, still available, I think on CD. His 'Incident at Los Voroces' based on the situation in Gaza at the time was obviously too much for his network. And then there's the politically correct 'Elderly Man River'....

Great stuff.

[Mark Stryker]

4

As Jim suggests, the modern era started in the '50s with Sahl, Bruce, Berman -- the result of an interesting confluence of the emergence of the long-playing LP and a new wave of sophisticated comedians of various stripes that captured the stirrings of a backlash against the social and political conformity of the era. Sahl's "The Future Lies Ahead" (Verve) from 1958 was ground zero, the first spoken-word comedy LP taped in front of a live audience (the hungry i in San Francisco, of course) -- though I think a bootleg Sahl recording may have been released previously. Berman had the first true hit, "Inside Shelley Berman" (Verve) entering the Billboard Top. 40 in April 1959, peaking at No. 2 for five weeks and staying in the top 40 for 46 weeks and the top 150 for more than two years. By July 16, 1961, there were more than a dozen comedy albums in the top 150, half of them in the top 40.

1

Mark - I think much credit must also be given to the now almost forgotten Stan Freberg whose satirizing of hit records of the day, and tv shows like 'Dragnet' were such a break-through in the early 50s...even on 78 rpm! Although best known for things like ' The Banana Boat Song' and 'Sh-boom' his real genius was apparent in his short lived radio series, still available, I think on CD. His 'Incident at Los Voroces' based on the situation in Gaza at the time was obviously too much for his network. And then there's the politically correct 'Elderly Man River'....

Great stuff.

To take nothing away from Freberg, I think of him more as an important precursor to the modern era of comedy recordings, because his hits were singles and not LPs and he wasn't a stand-up comedian in the sense of the new wave and thus was connected more to earlier parodists/satirists. Having said that, Freberg's masterpiece, "The History of the United States, Volume 1," from 1961, is loaded with inspired lunacy and brilliantly orchestrated by Billy May. Especially great is the duet between Franklin and Jefferson about the Declaration of Independence ("A Man Can't Be Too Careful What He Signs These Days") and "Take an Indian to Lunch"

Edited June 27, 2010 by Mark Stryker

[BruceH]

one of my very first records, I was probably 3 or 4.

A masterpiece. "Chicken Heart", "Tonsils", "Go Karts", etc. I found a used copy on vinyl recently and it's just as funny today as ever.

Ah, yes; I remember it well. I used to borrow this and other Cosby records from the local library on a pretty regular basis when I was growing up.

[JSngry]

FWIW, my intended focus of this thread was comedy records, not just records by standups. The Robin-Doud album in the opening post is a great comedy record, but not a "comedian" in sight!

Of course, the thread will go where it will go.

Just within the last year, I finally got to hear this one, after years of only hearing about its reputation:

1959!!!!!!!

[Joe]

Those Mike Nichols and Elaine May LPs issued by Mercury are pretty wonderful, too, especially AN EVENING WITH and IMPROVISATIONS TO MUSIC.

[carnivore]

and the two 'Word Jazz' albums by Ken Nordine.....not 'exactly' 100% comedy but great imaginative pieces especially 'The Vidiot' and 'The Sound Museum'

[Mark Stryker]

FWIW, my intended focus of this thread was comedy records, not just records by standups. The Robin-Doud album in the opening post is a great comedy record, but not a "comedian" in sight!

Of course, the thread will go where it will go.

Just within the last year, I finally got to hear this one, after years of only hearing about its reputation:

1959!!!!!!!

I love this record! Anyone who hasn't heard it can sample here: http://www.howtospeakhip.com/

Del Close was something else, man.

Edited June 27, 2010 by Mark Stryker

[Aggie87]

I am STILL looking for those hard to find 1950S records by THE GREAT BROTHER THEODORE. They don't show up anywhere. One was on either Kapp or Cadence, I forget which. Has anyone seen them on a blog or anything?

Is that the same guy that was on Letterman for a while? He was wild!

[paul secor]

Another for Richard Pryor's records. Even after all these years, I can't stop laughing when I listen.

Saw (& heard) Professor Irwin Corey a few months back - he was still great at 96 years of age - and played his "I Feel more like I Do Now" LP a few days after that. A funny,

talented, and wise man - something that can be said of most great comedians.

Jean Shepherd's record's - I know of three, not counting his reading of Robert Service's poems - are good, but they don't hold up to my memories of listening to his WOR radio show back in the day. Shep wasn't a comedian - if you had to put him into a box, storyteller/raconteur would be a better description, but he put a lot of humor in what he did.

[mjzee]

Cosby's "Wonderfulness" was one of the first records I owned. "Chicken Heart" was great...Mortimer Snerd...pretty much the whole album.

I have an interesting double-album of his called "8:15 12:15." I think it was the only album of his released on Tetragrammaton, which I think he was a part-owner of. Almost a concept album: two sets taped on the same night at a casino in Tahoe...one disc was the early show (8:15, natch), the second was the late show (12:15) which was more "adult." It is odd hearing Cosby trying to talk dirty...I'm not sure he fully got there. Something about a "midnight trampoline..."

Someone I knew had an album by Myron Cohen. I've always loved that Borscht Belt-type of humor. And let's not forget the 2000-Year Old Man!

Finally, "The First Family." That album was huge...until November 22, 1963.

[Mark Stryker]

Cosby's "Wonderfulness" was one of the first records I owned. "Chicken Heart" was great...Mortimer Snerd...pretty much the whole album.

I have an interesting double-album of his called "8:15 12:15." I think it was the only album of his released on Tetragrammaton, which I think he was a part-owner of. Almost a concept album: two sets taped on the same night at a casino in Tahoe...one disc was the early show (8:15, natch), the second was the late show (12:15) which was more "adult." It is odd hearing Cosby trying to talk dirty...I'm not sure he fully got there. Something about a "midnight trampoline..."

Someone I knew had an album by Myron Cohen. I've always loved that Borscht Belt-type of humor. And let's not forget the 2000-Year Old Man!

Finally, "The First Family." That album was huge...until November 22, 1963.

Lenny Bruce reportedly decided to perform his previously scheduled concert the night of Nov. 22 in New York and was left, of course, with the dilemma of what to say -- how to be funny -- in the immediate wake of the tragedy. The story is that he found his answer by digging into his hipster roots. He walked out, waited a few moments, shook his head from side to side in a sympathetic gesture and said, "Whew! -- Vaughn Meader."

Edited June 28, 2010 by Mark Stryker

[BERIGAN]

Those Mike Nichols and Elaine May LPs issued by Mercury are pretty wonderful, too, especially AN EVENING WITH and IMPROVISATIONS TO MUSIC.

My Mom loved them! Interesting that they both became directors.

Early Steve Martin was hard for me to warm up to. Even as a kid I found him too goofy. But, a friend and I were forever cracked up by him singing this line somewhere in the middle of the album. Grandpa............Bought a rubber! When you are 13, nothing in the world could be funnier!

Edited June 28, 2010 by BERIGAN

[marcello]

I remember these, that my Mother brought back from a trip to Flordia once:

Let's just say they are a decidedly acquired taste!

I think I have just about everything that Lenny Bruce recorded on LP. including this one:

Lenny Bruce Is Out Again - Lenny Bruce [1966]

Edited June 28, 2010 by marcello

[Harold_Z]

[Noj]

Early Steve Martin was hard for me to warm up to. Even as a kid I found him too goofy. But, a friend and I were forever cracked up by him singing this line somewhere in the middle of the album. Grandpa............Bought a rubber! When you are 13, nothing in the world could be funnier!

Still have my older brother's copy, and we quote that same line all the time.

[Jazzmoose]

So Harold, did you ever get into the Proctor & Bergman stuff? I had a couple of older friends that did, but with my limited budget at the time, I saved my loot for Firesign...

[Harold_Z]

I pretty much stuck with Firesign. The only related recording I bought was this:

[Teasing the Korean]

I am STILL looking for those hard to find 1950S records by THE GREAT BROTHER THEODORE. They don't show up anywhere. One was on either Kapp or Cadence, I forget which. Has anyone seen them on a blog or anything?

PM sent (you better sit down)

OMFG!!!!!

I am STILL looking for those hard to find 1950S records by THE GREAT BROTHER THEODORE. They don't show up anywhere. One was on either Kapp or Cadence, I forget which. Has anyone seen them on a blog or anything?

Is that the same guy that was on Letterman for a while? He was wild!

Yes, he started in the 1950s, was on Merv frequently, then disappeared for a while until Letterman brought him back in the 1980s.

When asked in an interview how he described his act, Brother Theodore called it "stand up tragedy."