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To Russell, My Brother
BILL COSBY
to russell, my brother, whom i slept with
Original 1968 album liner notes
Side One:
Baseball
(2:31)
Conflict
(1:19)
The Losers
(8:44)
The Apple
(1:43)
Side Two:
To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With
(26:30)
_______________________________________________________________
Cleveland, January 27, 1968. It was the next-to-the-last concert for Bill. Behind were 22 cities in 22 days. A tough one-nighter trip, but we were kind of exhilarated. It was New York next, and then home to California.
It was a Saturday night and the huge Cleveland Public Auditorium was filled. The box office had closed four days before. Standing Room Only. Ten thousand five hundred people – all there to see Bill Cosby. It was a good night.
It was early one Sunday morning, after listening all night to the tapes from the concerts looking for this album, that we heard the Cleveland concert show. It was thrilling. “To Russell, My Brother, Whom I Slept With” is one of the classic comedy pieces. It’s a picture, a book, a play, your life, your friend’s life, everyone’s life brought back to you so vividly that you can almost cry from it.
It was two nights later that the following press review – written by Mike Knapp of the Lorain, Ohio, Journal – came in. We read it and thought, “Wow, that’s what happened.”
So read it, listen to Mr. Cosby, and see if you don’t get the chills and call you friends and relatives and say, “You gotta hear this. It’s us.”
CLEVELAND – There was a “love-in” at Public Auditorium last Saturday night. It involved 10,000 laughing, sometimes roaring, applauding Clevelanders and one thin, gaunt, wirey young man on stage.
His name was Bill Cosby.
As the huge throng slowly began to fill up the giant auditorium, this writer wondered how one man could hold a crowd of that size (it was filled to capacity) for a two and a half hour show. The proceedings began late (because of the parking problems with both the Cosby and the boat show in the same hall) and ended after 11p.m. It appeared that no one had left.
The magic that is Bill Cosby permeates across the apron to the audience as soon as he sets foot on the stage. In a hall which is more accustomed to circuses, Cleveland Symphony pops concerts, operas, and even inaugural balls, all it took to satisfy Saturday’s audience was four microphones, a stool, a couple of spotlights, and one man.
During his time on stage, Cosby never once told a joke. He didn’t sing or dance or do tricks. All he did was talk – mostly about his past life in the ghettoes of Philadelphia. As a matter of fact, with the exception of one segment when he “discussed” his famous Noah and the Lord sketch, the entire program dealt with his childhood. The audience loved it.
He opened the program by talking about his two daughters, ages one and two, in a way in which every mother, father, or child in the audience could identify. His delivery and timing were faultless, and the word pictures which he paints with his mouth and his eyes and his whole willowy body are the substance of his greatness…
One of the…high spots of the evening was Cosby’s half hour monologue of two young boys, (brothers) in bed in the middle of the night, their antics and the reaction of their father. It was a sketch filled with warmth and hilarity with Cosby’s special blend of talk and microphone sound effects which make the whole thing seem more believable…
Bill Cosby obviously has thousands of fans in the Cleveland area, as judged by Saturday night’s 10,000 seat house. If he keeps this up, the next time he comes through, promoter Mike Belkin will have to hire out the Cleveland Stadium.
PRODUCED BY ROY SILVER
Recording Supervisor: Jimmy Hilliard
Recording Engineer: Lowell Frank
Editing Engineer: Bruce Staple
Art Direction: Ed Thrasher
Recorded Live at the Cleveland Public Auditorium, Cleveland, Ohio
STEREO
WARNER BROS.-SEVEN ARTS RECORDS, INC., A SUBSIDIARY AND LICENSEE OF WARNER BROS.-SEVEN ARTS, INC., 4000 WARNER BOULEVARD, BURBANK, CALIFORNIA; 321 W. 44TH STREET, NEW YORK, NEW YORK. MADE IN U.S.A.
WS 1734
