Saturday, June 02, 2007

THE DEFINITIVE "SGT. PEPPERS"

In all the hoopla this week over the 40th anniversary of The Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper," lets not forget the greatest version ever of the album's title song: by actor/comedian Bill Cosby.

I bought this album (which came out on CD last year) at a church rummage sale for a quarter 15 years ago or so, and honestly didn't think the Cos would actually try to sing. I figured he would do a kind of comedic talk/sing kinda thing. I put the needle on, he started singing, and my jaw hit the floor. I knew then and there that this was the one of the all-time great celebrity records. We're talking Shatner-riffic.
At least he had the good sense to use Charles Wright's Watts 103rd St. Rhythm Band, one of the great underrated funk outfits of the '70s.

Listen/download HERE.

Of the seven notes in the Western music scale, he hits all six wrong ones.

The liner notes of the album say that fans walked out of his music shows because he didn't tell any of his usual comedic stories. Uh, you sure that's why?

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why isn't this better-known? It's horrifying!

"Sing it, children...."

Lazer Kaufman said...

I could listen to this shit all day, man. I wonder if there's any video footage of his music shows?

Anonymous said...

Thank you very much for this gem.
And since you say you picked up the album and you've got a kot more bandwith now... is there any change that you could rip it all and upload the link?

Mr Fab said...

"is there any chance that you could rip it all and upload the link?"

I would if it was out of print, but it was reissued on cd last year, so I'd better not...

Anonymous said...

"I would if it was out of print, but it was reissued on cd last year, so I'd better not..."

Sorry, I wasn't aware of that. Thank you for your reaction anyway.

Silent 3 said...

The Coz singing the Beatles? And I thought the worst Fab 4 cover was Tony Randell's version of "Get by with a little help from my friends."

Sorry I listened to this. I'm gonna have nightmares later.

Silent 3 said...

which got me thinking... the BBC recently celebrated 40 years of SPLHCB with current bands doing the entire LP.

So... did anybody ever put together a version of SPLHCB featuring the worst covers of each song? You could start with Cosby's song to start the album, then segue into Tony Randell's horrid version of the 2nd song, then Shatner's take on "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" and so on.

Anonymous said...

link in broken please post again

Anonymous said...

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HAHA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

THIS IS HORRENDOUS

THANK YOU