I Hope I'm Funny: The Warner Albums (1974-1983) (7LP)

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Shocking. Hilarious. Boundary-defying. Fearless. Brilliant. In the world of comedy, few names resonate as powerfully as Richard Pryor. Regarded as one of the greatest and most influential comedians of all time, Pryor's ability to weave incisive social and political observations into his storytelling has left an indelible mark on the genre. His comedic legacy goes beyond awards and accolades; he used humor to explore complex themes like race, addiction, and personal trauma, challenging societal norms while making audiences laugh. 

In a celebration of his comedic genius, the enduring legacy of Richard Pryor is encapsulated in a newly released 7LP boxed set, I HOPE I'M FUNNY:THE WARNER ALBUMS (1974-1983). Each album showcases Pryor’s unparalleled humor and thought-provoking social commentary, solidifying his reputation as one of the greatest comedians of all time.

The set includes six albums: THAT N*****’S CRAZY, …IS IT SOMETHING I SAID?, BICENTENNIAL N*****, WANTED/RICHARD PRYOR LIVE IN CONCERT (double-LP), LIVE ON THE SUNSET STRIP, and HERE AND NOW.

Scott Saul, a Professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Becoming Richard Pryor (Harper Perennial), details Pryor’s essential recorded output between 1974 and 1983 in the set’s enlightening liner notes. Saul takes a deep dive into Pryor’s vast and immeasurable influence on the world of comedy, quoting comedian Paul Rodriguez, who once said that “there are two periods in comedy in America: before Richard Pryor and after Richard Pryor.” 

“The Age of Pryor has never ended,” Saul writes. “Across the six albums collected here, Pryor blew open what a comedian could do onstage, and it’s the rare comedian who is not somehow in his debt.”

The set opens with Pryor’s third album, THAT N*****’S CRAZY(1974). Recorded at Don Cornelius’ Soul Train nightclub in San Francisco, the LP includes some of the comedian’s funniest–and most poignant–routines from the era, including the thought-provoking “Wino & Junkie.” The record was a huge hit in the Black community, soaring to #1 on its R&B/Soul Albums chart for four weeks. It also won the Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album for 1974.

Next up: …IS IT SOMETHING I SAID?(1975). Another Grammy winner for Best Comedy Album and chart-topper on the Billboard R&B/Soul Albums chart, this release is famous for introducing one of Pryor’s most beloved and enduring characters, the extravagant storyteller Mudbone. According to Saul, “Mudbone is both a fabulist and a moralist, deploying his outrageous imagination in the service of a sidewinding truth.” 

Pryor originally released his sixth album,  BICENTENNIAL N*****, appropriately enough, in 1976. Despite being assembled in less than two weeks, it’s considered among his most impactful releases. Featuring the 10+ minute routine, “Mudbone Goes to Hollywood,” the LP found Pryor taking the Best Comedy Album Grammy award for the third year in a row. 

The next LP in the set is the double-album WANTED/RICHARD PRYOR LIVE IN CONCERT. Released in 1978, the Grammy-nominated set revealed the comedian digging deep and mining painfully intimate details of his own life for material: “The magic of Pryor’s comedy on WANTED lies in how he can make you see his life from so many perspectives at once,” Saul writes in the liner notes. “Flipping effortlessly between characters, he makes us see the righteous anger of his grandmother, schooling her errant grandson with force; the wide-eyed terror of the young Richard, dodging her blows; and the bemused perplexity of the adult Richard, wondering from the distance of three decades, how this ‘hell of a psychology’ has turned him into the man he has become.”

Pryor’s LIVE ON THE SUNSET STRIP (1982) came at a moment of personal and creative rebirth. The release found him being brutally honest about his addictions, which led the comedian to a devastating freebasing incident that left him with second and third-degree burns over half of his body. The excruciating rehabilitation from that moment drives much of the material here. Pryor’s frank recollections from the Sherman Oaks Burn Recovery Center, and an eye-opening trip to Kenya, created moments both heartbreaking and hilarious, often at the same time. The record brought him another Grammy nomination and win for Best Comedy Album in 1982. 

The last album in the set is HERE AND NOW (1983). Recorded when Pryor was clean and sober for the first time since he was 14 years old, the Grammy-nominated release saw the comic riffing on the trials of fame, meeting President Reagan, and the trials and tribulations of being a married man. He even revived the beloved Mudbone, with a wild tale of dealing with pubic lice during a stint in the L.A. County Jail. Proof that despite his sobriety, the most dangerous comedian of the past decade and beyond hadn’t lost his shocking edge.