No matter how you feel about Bill Cosby, given recent events, and where you might fall in your beliefs, it is sometimes necessary to separate the artist from the art. From 1963's Very Funny Fellow Right through 1968's Russell My Brother LP's, Bill racked up an incredible...
See more
No matter how you feel about Bill Cosby, given recent events, and where you might fall in your beliefs, it is sometimes necessary to separate the artist from the art. From 1963's Very Funny Fellow Right through 1968's Russell My Brother LP's, Bill racked up an incredible catalog of masterpiece comedy albums, all of which were my only spoken word albums, nestled in with my Beatles, Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, Mamas & Papas, Association, Grass Roots, and eventually Airplane, Dead, and Doors albums. Cosby albums were keepers, often brought out to relive gags and laughs with friends and family. His humor worked for all ages, all genders and ethnicities, Bill Cosby WAS a very funny fellow, Right!
My vinyl LPs were long gone from literally being worn down to the plastic scraping sound of a needle in a moat, so a few years ago, before the recent revelations began to creep into the news, and I set out to replace all of them with CD's and did so in one fowl swoop, scooping them all up from Amazon for a terrific price. These CD's have the quality of warm analogue sound the vinyl LP's had, no digital Doppler Shift here, you will be happy with the sound as soon as you hit play!
After "the news" my wife and I both had to decide if we had somehow "contributed" to a bad cause. This my friends is faulty thinking. We enjoy our entertainment hopefully without worry of perpetrating malfeasance or injustice in the world. Should we avoid all movies by a certain actor or director because they made insidious comments in a drunken stupor and should we stop entertaining ourselves with the art of personalities when they exhibit, or are accused of exhibiting, criminal behavior? We, you and I, are the observers of the art and not the supporters per se, of the artist's demons. If that were the case, should all Jackson Pollock paintings be destroyed because he was a philandering, foul-mouthed, drunken womanizer who left his family nearly destitute my means of suicide and negligible homicide?
I will step down from my soap box now. The fact is plain and simple, these classic Cosby albums are filled with non-stop laugh-out-loud stories which somehow have been kept from being "dated" because they reflect the growing up, coming of age, and relationship stories which are timeless by definition and delightful by sheer delivery. I choose to believe these albums were made during Bill Cosby's highest commitment to his art and to his audience, they certainly reflect that and each of these is a gem from start to finish with the greatest comedic observances you could find in "clean" comedy before the rise of the shock-comic who felt a need to swear with every sentence. Thank you for that Lenny, you won.
These are the Bill Cosby albums that one may consider his Greatest Hits (in chronological order):
BILL COSBY IS A VERY FUNNY FELLOW, RIGHT!
I STARTED OUT AS A CHILD
WHY IS THERE AIR?
WONDERFULNESS
REVENGE
200 MPH
TO RUSSELL MY BROTHER, WHOM I SLEPT WITH
IT'S TRUE! IT'S TRUE!
