Bill Cosby Is Not Himself These Days - Background

Background

For nine years, Cosby released at least an album a year since 1964. After a three-year hiatus, this was his first comedy album since 1973's Fat Albert, and he wouldn't return to a full-fledged stand-up album again until My Father Confused Me... What Must I Do? What Must I Do?

This is also his first album on Capitol Records. In this, his sixth musical album release (counting the 1971 instrumental jazz/funk album Badfoot Brown & the Bunions Bradford Funeral & Marching Band and its 1972 sequel; otherwise it is the fourth under his own name), he parodies various rhythm and blues artists including James Brown and Barry White. The songs were written with producer/keyboardist Stu Gardner.

The first single, "Yes, Yes, Yes", became one of Cosby's biggest charted hits after "Little Ole Man (Uptight, Everything's Alright)", reaching number 46 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 11 on the Billboard rhythm and blues singles chart. The song spoofed Barry White's deep-voiced spoken word monologues. "Ben" was sampled by Jurassic 5 on their 2002 song "After School Special".

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