Little Old Man
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 – 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.
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.
He had a top 20 hit Why Is There Air? in 1965. And Wonderfulness reached the Top Ten in 1966 in the USA. 'Revenge', reached no. 2 in the album chart. With Sidney Poitier in 1974 Bill made the film - Uptown Saturday Night, the first in a series of crime comedies which also included 1975's Let's Do It Again and 1977's A Piece of the Action.
1984 saw The Cosby Show, an NBC series inspired largely by his own family experiences.