 | This article includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations .(September 2016) |
| L.A. Jail | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Live album by | ||||
| Released | 1976 | |||
| Venue | P.J.'s, West Hollywood | |||
| Genre | Stand-up comedy | |||
| Length | 0:33:54 | |||
| Label | Tiger Lily | |||
| Producer | Black Rain Music | |||
| Richard Pryor chronology | ||||
| ||||
L.A. Jail is the seventh album by American comedian Richard Pryor, allegedly recorded live at P.J.'s in West Hollywood, California.
Although this album was not released until 1976 it was probably made during Pryor’s "transitional period"—i.e. after he walked off the stage at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas but before he recorded the 1974 LP, That Nigger's Crazy . This is suggested both by the tone and content of the material as well as by the information available about this recording in the Goldmine Comedy Record Price Guide.
Sonically this album is uniformly consistent. There are no significant changes in the character of Pryor’s voice, the level of the volume, or the general sounds of the audience. On several different tracks there are problems with noises and distortion from the microphone which are all acoustically similar to each other. All of this suggests that the master tapes for this album were recorded during one set of performances with the same recording set up, the same engineer, and the same troublesome microphone. It is not, like some of Pryor’s unauthorized albums on Laff Records, made up of sonically inconsistent tracks obviously recorded at different performances and different points during his career.
Two of the tracks on this album are taken from one of Pryor’s previously released albums. Tracks #1 and #7, "Arrested" and "Black Jack," on this album are the same as Tracks #8 and #14, "Cops/Line Up" and "Black Jack," on the Craps (After Hours) album.
Since Craps is known to have been recorded at The Redd Foxx Club in Hollywood this calls into question the assertion of this album’s own notes which state that it was recorded at P.J.’s in Los Angeles. Many of these tracks appear later on the 2005 compilation album Evolution/Revolution: The Early Years (1966–1974) which does include detailed notes. According to the notes on Evolution/Revolution , the tracks on this album which also appear on Craps were recorded at The Redd Foxx Club in January 1971. Those notes from Evolution/Revolution , however, do not include any information concerning the dates or venues for the other tracks which appear on both Evolution/Revolution and L.A. Jail.
The usually reliable Goldmine Comedy Record Price Guide also claims that Pryor authorized the release of this album on Tiger Lily Records. As most sources such as Robert Plante claim, however, the releases on Tiger Lily were usually unauthorized--Tiger Lily being, in fact, a tax scam operated by Morris Levy, the Mafia connected head of Roulette Records. The fact that several of these tracks are copies of tracks which appeared on an album that Pryor had previously released also supports the notion that this album was not authorized.
As stated earlier, in 2005, many of these tracks appeared on Pryor’s compilation album Evolution/Revolution . They are:
S1, T1 – "Arrested" – which appears on E/R as #30 – "The Line Up"
S1, T6 – "Bathrooms" – which appears on E/R as #16 – "Movie Stars In The Bathroom"
S2, T1 – "Black Jack" – which appears on E/R as #36 – "Blackjack"
S2, T2 "Groovy Feelings" – which appears on E/R as #12 – "I Feel"
S2, T4 "Chow Line" – which appears on E/R as #13 – "Jail"
Several of these tracks can also be connected with material Pryor will use on other albums.
"Farting Smells" includes material that is very similar to the tracks "Fartin’" from Craps (After Hours) and "Farting" from Richard Pryor.
"Funky People" is incredibly similar to "Smells" from Richard Pryor.
"2001" is an almost verbatim recreation of a scene from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey which Pryor will again recreate at the end of the track "Acid" from Bicentennial Nigger. This track may also help date this recording since Pryor claims that his reason for recreating this scene was because he had just seen the movie and he couldn’t stop thinking about it. Assuming he saw the film during its original release, that would date this performance to the spring or summer of 1968.
According to the liner notes, this album was produced by Black-Rain Music, released on Tiger Lily Records (catalog number TL 14023), and distributed by Roulette Records, with a copyright of 1976 by R.A.Inbows Ltd.
Black Mafia Life is the second studio album by American hip hop group Above the Law. This album is what would be considered the blueprint of the G-Funk sound similar to Dr Dre's The Chronic. The album was recorded in 1991 into 1992 but was held back due to legal issues with Epic And Dr. Dre's Departure from Ruthless Records. It was released on February 2, 1993, via Ruthless Records. The album peaked at number 6 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and number 37 on the US Billboard 200. Rolling Stone gave the album 4.5 stars of 5.
Richard Franklin Lennox Thomas Pryor Sr. was an American stand-up comedian and actor. He reached a broad audience with his trenchant observations and storytelling style and is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential stand-up comedians of all time. Pryor won a Primetime Emmy Award and five Grammy Awards. He received the first Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize for American Humor in 1998. He won the Writers Guild of America Award in 1974. He was listed at number one on Comedy Central's list of all-time greatest stand-up comedians. In 2017, Rolling Stone ranked him first on its list of the 50 best stand-up comics of all time.
Some Time in New York City is a part-studio, part-live double album by John Lennon and Yoko Ono as Plastic Ono Band that included backing by the American rock band Elephant's Memory. Released in June 1972 in the US and in September 1972 in the UK on Apple Records, it is the third album to bear Lennon's name since he left the Beatles, and his fourth with Ono. Like Lennon's previous solo albums, it was co-produced by Lennon, Ono and Phil Spector. The album's agitprop lyrics are very politically charged compared to its predecessors, discussing political and social issues and topics such as sexism, incarceration, colonialism, and racism.
The Monty Python Instant Record Collection is the title of two compilation albums by the Monty Python troupe. The first was released in the UK and Canada in 1977 and drew from the group's first three studio albums, first live album, and first soundtrack album on the Charisma label, while the second was released in the US in 1981 and comprised tracks from their four albums released on the Arista label. Billed as "the pick of the best of some recently repeated Python hits again, Vol. II", the record sleeve was designed by Terry Gilliam. The UK/Canadian version originally featured packaging that folded out into a cardboard box resembling a large stack of record albums. An inner sleeve featured a spoof "Where Are They Now?" update on the members of the Python team.
Clifford Joseph Trahan, better known by the stage names Johnny Rebel and Pee Wee Trahan, was an American singer, songwriter, and musician who performed songs that were supportive of white supremacy. He used the Johnny Rebel name for a series of recordings for J. D. "Jay" Miller's Reb Rebel label in the 1960s in response to the civil rights movement. The 12 songs exhibit racial hatred marketed as "subtle, rib-tickling satire". The songs frequently used the racial slur "nigger" and often voiced sympathy for racial segregation, the KKK, and the Confederacy.
Paul Gladney, better known by the stage name Paul Mooney, was an American comedian, writer, social critic and actor. He is best known for his collaborations with Redd Foxx, Eddie Murphy and Dave Chappelle, his writing for comedian Richard Pryor and the television series Sanford and Son, In Living Color and Chappelle's Show, as well as his acting role playing singer Sam Cooke in The Buddy Holly Story (1978), Junebug in Spike Lee's satirical film Bamboozled (2000) and Negrodamus on Chappelle's Show.
Laff Records was a small American independent record label specializing in comedy and party records originating on the West Coast of the United States during the 1970s. Amongst their artists were Richard Pryor, Redd Foxx, LaWanda Page, George Carlin, black ventriloquist duo Richard And Willie, Kip Addotta, Belle Barth, Rex Benson, and Skillet & Leroy.
Evolution/Revolution: The Early Years (1966–1974) is a two-CD compilation of live stand-up comedy recordings by comedian and actor Richard Pryor, that predates his 1974 mainstream breakthrough album That Nigger's Crazy.
Van Hunt is an American singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer. He released his debut album, Van Hunt, in 2004, and a follow-up, On the Jungle Floor, in 2006, both on Capitol Records. He won the Grammy Award for Best R&B Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocals for appearing on the tribute version of the Sly & the Family Stone song, "Family Affair", in 2007. He transitioned to Blue Note Records where his 2008 album, Popular, was shelved and would not be released until 2017. He self-released the compilation album Use in Case of Emergency in 2009.
The Anthology (1968–1992) is a two-CD compilation distilling the best tracks from American comedian Richard Pryor's seven albums he recorded and/or released on Warner Bros. Records or its subsidiary Reprise, and is essentially the digest version of his 2000 nine-CD box set ...And It's Deep Too! The Complete Warner Bros. Recordings (1968–1992). Pryor and his wife/manager Jennifer Lee Pryor assisted in and authorized the compilation, which was produced by the same team responsible for the ...And It's Deep Too box set, Reggie Collins and Steve Pokorny.
...And It's Deep, Too! The Complete Warner Bros. Recordings (1968–1992) is a compilation of all of Richard Pryor's recordings with Warner Bros. Records. It contains material recorded between 1968 and 1992 and was released in 2000 through Rhino Entertainment.
That Nigger's Crazy is the third album by American comedian Richard Pryor. It was recorded live at Don Cornelius' Soul Train nightclub in early 1974. The album's title was derived from a remark made by Pryor himself in Wattstax.
...Is It Something I Said? is the fourth album by Richard Pryor and the first he released on a new contract with Warner Bros. Records, a label he remained with for the rest of his recording career.
The United States version of Tiger Lily Records' was a record label that was run by Roulette Records founder Morris Levy. Purportedly it was a tax scam created by Levy and was never intended to make a profit. Tiger Lily's primary modus operandi was to acquire demo tapes from artists or studios and then release them without the artists consent and sometimes without even the artist's knowledge. Other albums released by Tiger Lily have been identified as bootlegs of albums released in the early 1970s by Artie Ripp's Family Productions and two cases of performers who were actually signed to Tiger Lily Records have been identified.
Music from the Motion Picture Poetic Justice is the soundtrack to John Singleton's 1993 film Poetic Justice. It was released on June 29, 1993, through Epic Soundtrax, and consisted of a blend of hip hop and R&B music. The album peaked at number 23 on the Billboard 200 chart in the United States and was certified Gold by the Recording Industry Association of America on August 25, 1993.
Bicentennial Nigger is the sixth album by the American comedian Richard Pryor. David Banks produced the album, while Warner Bros. Records released the album in September 1976. It is often considered one of his most influential recordings. The CD version of the album was released on 20 June 1989. It won the 1977 Grammy Award for Best Comedy Album.
Craps is the second album by American comedian Richard Pryor, released in 1971 on the Laff Records label. It was released during the comedian's transitional period from a middlebrow "Cosbyized" comic into a more improvisational, socially conscious, controversial brand of raw humor that Pryor would help to pioneer during the 1970s. Several monologues from the album were repeated for Pryor's debut concert film, Live & Smokin', although that film would be held from release until 1985 as a VHS videotape. Recorded at Redd Foxx's club in Hollywood, Pryor is introduced by the emcee as "the crown prince of comedy".
Bitches Brew Live is a live album by Miles Davis. The album was released in February 2011 and contains material compiled from two concert performances. Most of the songs on the album originally appeared on Bitches Brew. The first three tracks were recorded at the Newport Jazz Festival in July 1969, nine months before the release of Bitches Brew, while the rest of the album was recorded at 1970 Isle of Wight Festival. The three cuts from Newport -- "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down," "Sanctuary," and "It's About That Time/The Theme" —- were previously unreleased at the time and have since been reissued on the "At Newport 1955-1975" volume of the Sony Bootleg series. This recording marks the first known time that "Miles Runs the Voodoo Down" was professionally recorded. The final six cuts appeared on the "Miles Electric" DVD in video form and the audio portion was included in the box set Miles Davis: The Complete Columbia Album Collection. A seventeen-minute segment appeared under the title "Call It Anything" on the "First Great Rock Festivals Of The Seventies: Isle Of Wight/Atlanta Pop Festival" compilation album in 1971.
"Whitey" is a derogatory term for a white person. The level of contempt implied by the term varies, although it is most often used as an insult.
Hotgun is an album purported to be the self-titled debut record of a band called Hotgun, released by tax-scam label Guinness Records. The album is actually a composite, combining demo recordings made by members of a Nashville area band called Ethos with cover versions of popular songs recorded by employees of Nashville recording studio Audio Media originally intended for compilation albums.