Comedy album

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Cal Stewart released comedy records as early as 1898.

A comedy album is an

comedic material from a comedian or group of comedians, usually performed either live or in a studio. Comedy albums may feature skits, humorous songs, and/or live recording of stand-up comedy performances, but the most common type of comedy albums are stand up
, and are often made in conjunction with a DVD with recorded video of a particular comedy show.

Description

Some of the earliest albums recorded for popular commercial distribution were comedy albums. For example, various collections of humorous short stories recited by vaudeville comedian Cal Stewart were released by Edison Records as early as 1898.[1] A number of record labels specialize in the comedy genre, including Aspecialthing Records, Comedy Central Records, Partee Records, Stand Up! Records, Stereolaffs and Celery Sound Records.

Comedy albums have won the

Grammy Award for Best Spoken Word Album on several occasions, including America Again: Re-becoming The Greatness We Never Weren't, by Stephen Colbert (2014) and If You Ask Me (and of Course You Won't) by Betty White (2012). The first album to win this honor was The Best of the Stan Freberg Shows by Stan Freberg
(1959), a variety album including comedy bits.

There is also a podcast that covers the history and influence of comedy albums, primarily on vinyl, titled Comedy on Vinyl, which also premiered a 50-year-old lost Bob Newhart track in 2015.

History

Cal Stewart recorded monologues of jokes as the rustic "Uncle Josh" in the late 1890s.

The Okeh Laughing Record, a record of a man and a woman simply laughing for three minutes, was a best-seller in 1922.[2] Records of comedy songs became popular, with vaudeville and musical comedy stars such as Eddie Cantor and Fanny Brice releasing their own.[2] However when radio became popular with higher fidelity FM broadcasting in the early 1930s, sales of records dropped.[2] Spike Jones had some successes in the late 1940s. Comedy albums were held back by the technology of the time only allowing for short recordings, but when longer-duration LP records were introduced in 1948, it allowed artists such as Lord Buckley, Stan Freberg and Tom Lehrer to record material close to modern comedy albums.[2]

The one album to possibly be considered the first modern comedy album is

Guns N’Roses.[6][2]

The 1960s saw a comedy album phenomenon with the likes of

Cheech and Chong, Richard Pryor, Robert Klein, David Steinberg, Lily Tomlin, National Lampoon and Steve Martin.[2][8]

World Science Fiction Society for two of their albums in 1971 and 1972. They continued recording on other labels as late as 2011, and three of their albums received nominations for Best Comedy Album Grammy in 1984, 1988, and 2001.[citation needed
]

Party records

Party records were a genre of

Lawanda Page, Moms Mabley, Rudy Ray Moore, Tina Dixon, Belle Barth, Skillet & Leroy, and Richard & Willie
.

Further reading

References

  1. ^ Ronald L. Smith, Comedy on Record: The Complete Critical Discography (1988), p. 624.
  2. ^
    ISBN 978-0446505314
    . Retrieved July 1, 2020.
  3. ^ Garrison, Laura Turner (July 9, 2012). "How Did Slipping on a Banana Peel Become a Comedy Staple?". Mental Floss.
  4. ISBN 9780307490728
    .
  5. ^ Christing, Adam (November 8, 2019). "A History of Clean Comedians . . . Decade by Decade". Clean Comedians. Retrieved July 1, 2020.
  6. ^ Ess, Ramsay (March 15, 2018). "An Appreciation of the Button-Down Mind of Bob Newhart". Vulture. Retrieved July 1, 2020.
  7. ^ "13 comedy albums from the 1960s that can still crack people up". MeTV. July 20, 2016. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
  8. ^ Hagle, Will (February 7, 2018). "The 10 Best Stand-up Comedy Albums To Own On Vinyl". Vinyl Me Please. Retrieved 1 July 2020.
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