Let's Get Small

Too many of the reviews here are not judging this album on its own merits, but on everything they know about Steve Martin following the appearance of this album in 1977. The fact is that this album was so successful that it catapulted Steve Martin into the national spotlight, but before this album he was virtually unknown. At a time when most comedians were basing more and more of their humor on their capacity to get progressively vulgar, Martin brought forth a brand of humor that depended less on profanity than conceptual humor. He could get obscene as well, but because most of his act was "clean," the few times he would get bawdy had far more impact than with other major comedians.

I remember reading once that before turning to comedy Martin was in college a philosophy student, especially the linguistic philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Certainly Martin is more conceptual than any contemporary comedian (though Steven Wright has since developed a comparable...Read more

Anyone who can use "Obsequious, Purple and Clairvoyant" in a sentence, and make you laugh at the same time, is a comical genius! This album makes you wish that you had a 'wayback machine' set to 1977. You would gladly pay your four dollar admission to the Boarding House, and spend the next hour or so laughing with/at Mr. Steve Martin.

Since much of the humor is in the delivery, you'll have to listen for yourself to appreciate this masterpiece of comedy! You won't be dissappointed!

In interviews in the early eighties, Steve Martin claimed that he hated performing standup: he said it frightened him. But he sure showed audiences a good time. He once led an audience - several hundred of them - outside to a local fast food joint and tried to order fries for everybody; another story he tells had him leading an audience out for a walk into the nearby neighborhood where they found an empty swimming pool. He had them all get in and he swam across the top of them - years before that became a commonplace of rock concerts.

Here he is with his banjo (he is a wonderful, mostly self-taught banjo player), trying and failing to sing sad songs with banjo accompaniment. ("You just can't sing a sad song with a banjo.... 'Oh death...and grief....and sorrow...and murder....'") He talks mockingly of seventies pot culture, improvises, dreams, and rambles with an ease and mastery that surpasses all of his subsequent albums. Highly recommended!