Artist: Bill Cosby
Genre(s):
Comedy
Discography:
At His Best
Year: 2004
Tracks: 10
20th Century Masters - The Millennium Collection: The Best of Bill Cosby
Year: 2001
Tracks: 12
Wonderfulness
Year: 1998
Tracks: 8
Revenge
Year: 1998
Tracks: 10
Bill Cosby Is A Very Funny Fellow Right!
Year: 1995
Tracks: 12
My Father Confused Me, What Should I Do?
Year: 1991
Tracks: 13
For Adults Only
Year: 1990
Tracks: 8
Bill Cosby: Himself
Year: 1990
Tracks: 7
Album
Year:
Tracks: 8
Although African-American comedians had long been a staple of the stand up circuit prior to the outgrowth of Bill Cosby, none had come regular remotely close to reaching the same high of commercial success or universal acceptance. Before Cosby, mordant comics were largely relegated to the supposed "chitlin circuit" of smuggled nightclubs and theaters, their albums prohibited from white-owned record stores; after Cosby, comedians of all racial and cultural backgrounds found a home in the mainstream, and were level given the chance to prove their talents in major plastic film and telly roles. Simply assign, Cosby stone-broke comedy's color roadblock, and he coif the stage for the far-flung success of everyone from Richard Pryor to Eddie Murphy.
William H. Cosby, Jr. was innate in Philadelphia on July 12, 1937. The logos of a housemaid and an absentee father, he grew up in abject impoverishment, ultimately dropping out of senior high school schooltime to unite the Navy. After earning his sheepskin through correspondence courses, he won a football scholarship to Temple University; piece pickings classes during the clarence Shepard Day Jr., he tended bar in the evenings, where his easy ability to make customers jape resulted in the decision to follow a career in comedy.
Cosby quickly distinguished himself from his peers in a number of ways: not just did his relaxed, conversational style swear on warm, anecdotal childhood recollections instead of one-liners and gags, only unlike other ignominious comedians, he refused to tell racial jokes or use profanities, establishing himself as a endowment suitable for all ages and backgrounds. As a result, his success was prompt: his Grammy-nominated 1963 debut Peak Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow...Right! effected him as an overnight star as his blowy comic sensibility marked a significant shift out from the "sick" funniness of Lenny Bruce and Shelley Berman then so very much in style.
1964's I Started Out as a Child -- the low of a platter 6 serial Grammy-winning releases -- proven level more pop with audiences, and soon Cosby was contacted by television producer Sheldon Leonard to star with Robert Culp in the espionage series I Spy. Despite arguing -- a number of Southern affiliates threatened non to aura the show up -- Leonard stood firm, and Cosby became the number one black ever to star in a dramatic computer program; finally, the evince was a huge hit, and he fifty-fifty won an Emmy Award for his portrayal of Agent Alexander Scott.
Even at the series' prime, he continued committal to writing and playacting stand, issuance the Top 20 hit Wherefore Is There Air? in 1965. After 1966's Admirableness reached the Top Ten, Cosby hit his commercial tip the following year with Retaliation, which rosebush to the number deuce spot. Significantly, the record album likewise marked the debut of Fat Albert and his pack, a grouping of honey Cosby characters which later formed the basis of a long-running animated series for children. A hustle of releases followed as Cosby fulfilled his Warner Bros. concentrate with 1968's To Russell, My Brother Whom I Slept With, and 200 M.P.H.; along with the following year's It's True! It's True!, the two-record 1969 mark 8:15/12:15 appeared on Tetragrammatron, a passing label which the comedian co-owned.
After sign language to Uni, he issued a self-titled 1969 endeavour, followed by the sitcom The Bill Cosby Show. With the programme, Cosby suffered his number one major esthetic reversal; although NBC committed to two seasons of the show, ratings were weak, and at the remnant of the biennial period NBC pulled the chaw. Although albums like 1970's "Live" Madison Square Garden Center and When I Was a Kid were successful, the period following the series' cancellation marked a critical point for Cosby; his well of puerility reminiscences was functional dry, and he distinctly required to explore new ground.
Accordingly, commencement with 1971's For Adults Only he made a conjunct shift towards more mature corporeal; patch still not gamy, his routines reflected a more adult attitude and sensibility. That same year he launched The New Bill Cosby Show, a fatal variety political program which lasted only one season. Not surprisingly, he took a subsequent foramen from television system; subsequently recording 1972's Inside the Mind of Bill Cosby and the next year's Juicy Albert, he shifted his focus to film, teaming with Sidney Poitier in 1974 for Uptown Saturday Night, the number one in a successful series of crime comedies which too included 1975's Let's Do It Again and 1977's A Piece of the Action.
Regardless of his winner in other media, Cosby continued his fertile recording turnout; with 1976's Bill Cosby Is Not Himself These Days (Rat Own, Rat Own, Rat Own) and 1977's Disco music Bill, he satirized electric current trends in R&B. (In the late '60s and early '70s, he likewise recorded a number of "straight" music albums like Silver Throat Sings and At Last Bill Cosby Really Sings.) After some other failed telecasting attack, 1976's children's prime time salmagundi computer program Cos, he came back up to stand up with a retribution for 1977's My Father Confused Me, What Should I Do?, a return to the family-oriented vignettes which first north Korean won him an interview. 1978's Bill's Best Friend continued the trend as well as offering cautionary messages against inebriant and do drugs use, while the popularity of concert films -- in the first place those of Richard Pryor -- sparked the 1982 characteristic and soundtrack Bill Cosby: Himself.
Later keeping a scummy profile for several age, he resurfaced in 1984 with The Cosby Show, an NBC series elysian largely by his possess mob experiences. The present was an unequalled success which brought new life to the situation comedy arrange -- a vehicle marked beat by many onlookers -- and promptly stroke to the number one slot in the Nielsen ratings, a attitude where it remained passim the majority of its eight-season run. Although his popularity was never in doubtfulness ahead the show's debut, The Cosby Show made its nominal headliner even more of a achiever; non only was he the almost pop and beloved talent on video, simply he too became a successful writer, and in 1986 he besides returned to recording with the album Those of You With or Without Children, You'll Understand. Only picture remained impenetrable, as both 1987's abysmal Leonard, Part 6 and 1990's similarly unsound Ghost Dad bombed miserably.
After the 1991 LP Oh Baby, the comedian opted to end production of The Cosby Show to explore new endeavors. The number 1, a syndicated update of the old Groucho Marx quiz shew You Bet Your Life, ended after only one season; the second, The Cosby Mysteries, fared no better. Clearly, his interview cherished to see the performer in his natural milieu; accordingly, the kinsperson sitcom Cosby debuted in 1996.
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