Bill Cosby

BILL COSBY*Little Ole Man (Uptight, Everything's Alright)1967 HQ

He had a top 20 hit Why Is There Air? in 1965

Little Old Man
Bill Cosby

Bill Cosby – Funky North Philly (WB) – Say what? Cliff Huxtable gets down? Right on my brothers. Not many folks are hip to the fact that from the mid-60’s to the mid-70’s the Cos had a shadow career making soul and funk discs (and bizarre oddities like ‘Grover Henson Feels Forgotten’) for labels such as Warner Brothers and Uni. He actually hit the charts once back in his I Spy days with a remake of Stevie Wonder’s Uptight, called Little Old Man from the Silver Throat Sings LP. ‘Funky North Philly’ is a quasi-remake of ‘Funky Broadway’ in which the good doctor raps about his life growing up in the area of the same name. It’s a pretty good record too. Of course, current events mean that all this is now irrelevant as he has become notorious as an abuser and was sentence for 3 to 10 years as a result. No doubt rather like other convicted abusers, any contributions he made in any field will be airbrushed out.

Bill Cosby was born: July 12, 1937, Philadelphia, PA

Bill Cosby became a mainstream comedian in the States following on from acts like Amos and Andy, who came out of the so-called chitlin circuit of black nightclubs and theatres (such albums were banned from white-owned record stores).

After Bill Cosby, comedians of all racial and cultural backgrounds became mainstream. Bill Cosby broke comedy’s colour barrier almost single-handedly. The Grammy-nominated 1963 debut Bill Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow…Right! Made him an overnight star.

Bill Cosby  the comedian released a soul recording sounding a lot like Stevie Wonder’s Uptight hit.

He also made a record with Cassius Clay(Muhammad Ali). Clay also did a great soul duet with Sam Cooke.

Bill Cosby – Wikipedia