Bill Cosby
Revenge
Warner Bros. Records
W 1691 - Monophonic
______________________________________________
From the original vinyl LP
SIDE ONE
Revenge (5:58)
Two Daughters (5:16)
Two Brothers (2:55)
The Tank (1:35)
Smoking (2:50)
Wives (2:35)
SIDE TWO
Cool Covers (4:25)
9th St. Bridge (5:12)
Buck, Buck (9:05)
Planes (2:00)
JOIN BILL COSBY IN REVENGE
___________________________________________________
Bill Cosby can walk on stage and ask one certain question (just one simple cornball good guy question) and hook you. Watch for it. If he asks this one question, he'll have you doubled in two, grabbing for air.
It's regular dynamitve. A TNT question. Socrates, he should be so lucky to know this question to ask.
Usually, funny guys do not get tremendously big laughs on question lines. Question lines like, "What is this, an audience or a jury?" nowadays go stiff pretty quick.
But Bil can walk out on stage - dragging a chair for use as his only prop - stand there and flub around for a while - talk about the pro bowl game or how much you lost at craps. Or whatever. Flub around for a while.
You wait.
Then it comes: probably the most significant question of the year.
"Would yo tell me what the heck it is with two year olds that they are so infatuated with the toilet bowls?"
The results of questions like that have made Cos into America's newest #1 Funny Good Guy. Bob Hope may still be Mr. America in Good Deeds; he shows up in Viet Nam. Danny Kaye does the bit for UNICEF in Saudi Arabia, and that makes him good, too.
But Cos, what does he do? He stands up there watering the eyes of jaded adults.
That takes class.
Back to Bill on stage. Standing up there, tall, suave and adult in his neato tux with the wide bow tie, telling dice-worn audiences funny, rambling incidents about guys like Old Weird Harold and Fat Albert. And making it work.
Standing there, not even knowing what he really is, and is doing: unaware that he, Bill Cosby, is speaking the most beautiful comic writing being produced today, anywhere. Cos on stage, coming out with the most touching paeans to Americana and youth since Holden Caulfield and, before him, Ulysses Macauley of Ithaca, Calif.
And then the audience leaves the auditorium. Back into the smoke-choked world of the craps table or whatever kicks are currently killing them.
And Cos stretches out backstage, wrinkling his neato tux.
A lot of those old neighborhoods have been torn down now. Fat Albert, tonight maybe he's 28 and clerks in a pawn shop now. Weird Old Harold's probably teaching third grade in some other state now.
Go back there now and, gee, you'd hardly recognize the place. Go back now, the sidewalks are too narrow. The store fronts are painted up covering your love letters in chalk. The new gang plays different games.
The old gang's 75% gone and forgot.
Except, maybe, Cos'll ask one of his questions! If he does - Gang Busters! There's that other 75%! So very real you'll double over and roll on the floor.
In thankfulness.
- Stan Cornyn
___________________________________________________
Produced by Roy Silver
Recording Coordinator: Jimmy Hilliard
Recording Engineers: Lowell Frank and Wally Heider
Editing Engineer: Bruce Staple
Recorded "Live" (and Photo Courtesy of) Harrah's, Lake Tahoe, Nevada.
Art Direction: Ed Thrasher
Cosby Complete would also include:
Wonderfulness
(Warner Bros. Album 1634)
Why Is There Air?
(Warner Bros. Album 1606)
I Started Out As A Child
(Warner Bros. Album 1567)
Bill Cosby ... Right!
(Warner Bros. Album 1518)
