Mort Sahl brought Shelley Berman to Verve Records for Shelley to record his debut (and to which Sahl contributed the liner notes.) Mort Sahl's first two comedy albums came out in 1958. His first, At Sunset, had been recorded in 1955, but his second album was more contemporaneous to its release. Mort Sahl released The Future Lies Ahead on Verve Records.
Here is the discography surrounding Mort Sahl's second album:
Originally, Nichols and May performed as a threesome with fellow Compass Player, Shelley Berman, but three was a crowd and Berman was crowded out. But, he still found his own success as a nightclub comic and released his debut album Inside Shelley Berman in 1958 on Verve Records.
Here is the discography surrounding Shelley Berman's debut album:
"Sonata for Piano and Celeste" by Mike Nichols & Elaine May
The ascent of Whoopi's one-woman show to Broadway was helped along by director Mike Nichols. Nichols had also parlayed a stage and film career from a start in comedy. He was a member of the Compass Players (a proto-Second City) in Chicago where he developed an improv routine with Elaine May. They would leave Compass as an act and immediately find success as "Nichols and May." They released their debut album Improvisations to Music in late 1958 on Mercury Records.
Here is the discography surrounding Mike Nichols & Elaine May's debut album:
Improvisations to Music
Excerpts from "Improvisations to Music" (1958 promo single)
Nichols and May on Omnibus with Alistair Cooke
Nichols and May at the Emmys
"Everybody's Doing It" by Mike Nichols & Elaine May
Lily Tomlin was the first solo woman to win in the Best Comedy Recording category at the Grammys for her debut album. The next woman to win in the category also won for her debut album: Whoopi Goldberg's 1985 Whoopi Goldberg: Original Broadway Show Recording from Geffen Records.
Here is the discography surrounding Whoopi Goldberg's debut album:
Cheech & Chong's debut album was nominated in 1972 for Best Comedy Recording but lost out to another debut album nominated that year: Lily Tomlin's This Is a Recording, released in 1971 on Polydor Records.
Here is the discography surrounding Lily Tomlin's debut album:
An Evening at the Upstairs Downstairs Presents: Mixed Doubles and Below the Belt - Original Cast Recordings (1966 album)
Tommy Chong was one of the longest tenured Vancouvers and, before relocating to the US, a Vancouver-local business partner with Bobby Taylor. The modest success brought from the band's album and singles didn't meet his ambition and that ambition would, at least in part, lead to the dissolution of a band that was just getting started... though probably not going to do much better. Tommy Chong continued pursuing music but that would gradually give way to the greater success he found through comedy. His short-lived improv comedy troupe City Works would bring him and Cheech Marin together, and a routine was born. Cheech & Chong would release their debut album Cheech and Chong in 1971 on Ode Records.
Here is the discography surrounding Cheech & Chong's debut album:
"I Heard It Through the Grapevine" by Bobby Taylor and The Vancouvers
Gladys Knight may have brought the Jackson family name to Motown, but that didn't make any difference for their career. The Jackson 5 continued to tour and heard nothing back from their first booster. In 1968 at the Regal Theater in Chicago, they ended up opening for Bobby Taylor and The Vancouvers, a diverse R&B group that had just released their debut album Bobby Taylor and The Vancouvers on the Motown subsidiary Gordy Records. According to Taylor, Michael followed him around whenever either weren't on stage for the duration of their gig. Impressed by The Jackson 5's work ethic and Michael's James Brown-inspired performances, he told them that he could get them a meeting with Motown. He followed through and brought them to Motown himself.
Bobby Taylor performed throughout the tumultuous early history of rock and roll and set to wax doowop, garage rock and R&B. By the time he and his band were discovered and brought to Motown from... Vancouver, they were ready to deliver a solid record.
Most of the album consists of covers but for a couple originals that includes their debut single "Does Your Mama Know About Me," a song that would've played nicely during the opening credits of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. While the singles are helped along with flowery production, the repertoire covers that make up the rest of the album are a fruitful mix of genres from Taylor's past: simple but effective garage rock drums; punctuating doo-wop harmonies; funky, melodic bass lines; the occasional psychedelic guitar touch; and the anchoring, soulful voice of Bobby Taylor. Taylor makes it all work and he carries each song as best he can while the delicate sonic balance is staged all around him.
Here is the discography for Bobby Taylor and The Vancouvers:
The Move Around (1958 single by 4 Pharaohs)
Give Me Your Love (1960 single by 4 Pharaohs)
Give Me Your Love (1960 single by Columbus Pharaohs)
Seven Steps to an Angel (1961 single by Bobby Taylor with Charlie and The Jives)
Too Much Monkey Business (1965 single by Little Daddie and The Bachelors)
Come On Home (1965 song by Little Daddie and The Bachelors)
Without Love (1967 single by Ronnie Taylor)
Does Your Mama Know About Me (1968 promo single)
Does Your Mama Know About Me (1968 single)
Malinda (1968 single)
Bobby Taylor and The Vancouvers
I Am Your Man (1968 single)
In Bed (1969 single by Wes Henderson)
How Insensitive (1973 single by The Jury)
"It's Growing" by Bobby Taylor and The Vancouvers
"I Am Your Man" by Bobby Taylor and The Vancouvers
Despite the impression left by the album's title, Diana Ross didn't play a role in the "presentation" of The Jackson 5. Her name was included to cross-promote the start of her own solo career with the Five's debut. Gladys Knight, rather, was the first to bring the Jacksons to the attention of Motown brass. Gladys Knight and The Pips released their debut album Letter Full of Tears in 1962 on Fury Records.
Gladys Knight and The Pips had a tumultuous start. They started with a regional hit, "Every Beat of My Heart," that propelled them out of Atlanta to New York. The requisite album that followed didn't find the same success. Disintegration followed as the family band lost all its female members, including Gladys, to the family way. The Pips hung on as a solid live act and Gladys Knight pursued a solo career in collaboration with her husband.
Their debut album is also a tumultuous start to a storied career. Gladys dominates the album with a natural but young voice not yet ready for the forced crescendos in rock 'n' roll ballads of teenage wanting (the kind of songs Lesley Gore would perfect just a year later.) All the same song structure and none too flattering to a young talent. The Pips meanwhile are left to twiddle their harmonies redundantly behind typical pre-Beatles studio production, only getting a chord in edgewise to button a song. The occasional song does show their promise with "What Shall I Do?" highlighting Knight at her best, a soft, nearly spoken delivery that encourages the listener to lean in, and the song even gives The Pips unimpeded "Hey Hey Hey"'s. The song's last line even brings it all back around by slyly invoking the "Letter Full of Tears" that started the album.
Here is the discography surrounding Gladys Knight and The Pips's debut album:
Whistle My Love (1958 single by The Pips)
Every Beat of My Heart (1961 single)
Every Beat of My Heart (1961 single)
Guess Who (1961 single)
Letter Full of Tears (1961 single)
Letter Full of Tears
Operator (1962 single)
Linda (1962 single by The Pips)
Happiness (Is the Light of Love) (1962 single by The Pips)
Come See About Me (1963 single by Gladys Knight)
Queen of Tears (1963 single by Gladys Knight)
"Every Beat of My Heart" by Gladys Knight & The Pips
