Review of Richard Pryor: Live in Concert (1979) by Tom B — 24 Dec 2009

How many times have I seen this now? 15? 20? Starting when I was too young to get half the jokes, for sure. The best stand-up comic of all time in his best recorded performance. Nobody else had Pryor's natural ability to make everything seem effortlessly improvised--as perfectly polished as every one of the bits is, right down to the last syllable, each of them flows like it's something that just occurred to him to say.

He really comes across as somebody who's just hanging out and eager to have a fun conversation. His whole stage presence is flawless that way--he runs around, dances, and pantomimes fights, sex, macho posturing, and a heart attack, among many other things.

In a room full of a couple thousand people, he does a couple routines lying on his back, and manages to get the crowd to go stone silent a couple times. One bit get an enormous ovation because he tells the whole thing so quietly that no one dares interrupt him with laughter.

He comments on race, addiction, rape, and million different kinds of bad decisions, making all of it unbelievably funny. As a writer, social critic, humorist, and performer, Pryor was hard to match. A lot of what he does has influenced so many comics working ever since that we take some of this kind of material for granted--but Pryor was the first one to bring so much of it so successfully to the mainstream.

He was an unbelievable talent and it's still hard to accept that he's gone.