Remember the days when you went to the record store to pick up not only the latest Beatles, Elton John, or Stevie Wonder release, but also the new one by Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, or Cheech & Chong? Or your best friend would invite you over and turn you on to a Steve Martin or Eddie Murphy album? (Regarding the latter, I mean his comedy records, not "Party All The Time," though his forays into music can be viewed as comical as well.) If it caught your fancy, you'd listen to it over and over until you knew every line by heart. The obvious problem with the repeated playing of all but the most timeless of comedy recordings is the law of diminishing returns--once you know the joke, it's no longer quite as funny. And, as the years roll by, the topical-oriented bits become annoyingly dated.
Despite the inherent shortcomings of the medium, comedy albums reigned supreme during the '60s and '70s. In 1960, Bob Newhart scored two back-to-back #1 hits on the pop charts with his best-selling albums The Button-Down Mind Of Bob Newhart (which also won a Grammy) and The Button-Down Mind Strikes Back!. Two years later, comedian Vaughn Meader made a brief career with his dead-on impression of then-President John F. Kennedy by recording The First Family, an entire album of JFK-inspired satire, which shot to #1, went gold, and won a Grammy. (Can you imagine a Clinton impersonator competing with 'N Sync or Eminem?) Unfortunately for Vaughn, his stock plummeted shortly thereafter when Kennedy was assassinated the following year. During the mid-to-late '60s, Bill Cosby hit the Top 10 with three albums--Wonderfulness, Revenge, and To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With--and several others went gold or platinum. In the '70s, classic sides by George Carlin (FM & AM, Class Clown), Richard Pryor (That Nigger's Crazy, ...Is It Something I Said?), Cheech & Chong (Big Bambu, Cheech & Chong's Wedding Album), Flip Wilson (The Devil Made Me Buy This Dress), Steve Martin (Let's Get Small, A Wild And Crazy Guy), and Robin Williams (RealityWhat A Concept) charted right alongside Led Zeppelin IV, Songs In The Key Of Life, and Rumours. 'Course, there were also the cult faves like Dick Gregory, Stan Freberg, Tom Lehrer, the Firesign Theatre, Carl Reiner & Mel Brooks' "2000-Year Old Man", National Lampoon, and, of course, Redd Foxx and Lenny Bruce, both of whom worked "blue" during an era when that term actually meant something. The point to remember is that when each of these artists released a new album, it was considered an Event amongst their fans. During this fertile period, there were no HBO specials or Def Comedy Jams. Unless you caught of them on, say, The Ed Sullivan Show, The Tonight Show, or, later, Saturday Night Live, there was, for the most part, no other outlet to hear their stand-up acts aside from seeing them peform live. This was especially true of the, ahem, saltier comics like Pryor, Carlin, and Cheech & Chong.
Ironically, comedy albums began to lose their luster with the advent of a medium--the concert film--that was pioneered by one of the comedians whose career benefited most from his recordings, Richard Pryor. 1979's Richard Pryor--Live In Concert and 1982's Richard Pryor Live On The Sunset Strip proved that the theatrical release of a comic's stand-up act could be a box-office winner so long as the name was a big enough draw (Eddie Murphy's Raw) or if it received strong word-of-mouth and positive notices in the press (the recent The Original Kings Of Comedy). Home video and cable television furthered the demise of comedy albums, as it was now possible to not only hear but see your favorite comedian cussing to his/her heart's delight in the comfort of your own living room. Why buy Chris Rock's new CD when you can see him uncensored on HBO?
Despite these developments, the very best comedy albums of old (Cosby, Pryor, Carlin, Firesign Theatre, etc.) continue to serve a purpose: They are among the only recorded documents of classic comedic performances that would otherwise be lost to history. And there is no such thing as a world filled with too much laughter.
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