GARRETT MORRIS' 1980 ALBUM ON MCA
pickwick33
8,946 Posts
Anybody heard it?As you've probably guessed from the Saturday Night Live thread, I've been on a serious kick for that show lately. Morris, as the lone African-American member of the cast (at the time), usually got saddled with these lame Token Black roles, even though he was far more talented than you'd think (being an accomplished singer/pianist as well as actor). Can't say whether he just wasn't meant for SNL's brand of humor or the staff just didn't give him challenging roles (maybe both?), but anyway, he made this album right around the time he left the show. I've heard this LP, and it really does sound like he didn't know whether to make it comedy or music, so he went for broke and went straight down the middle. And it sounds just as weird as you'd expect, and not in a good way.The single was "I Want To Be A Cowboy But I'm Too Short," where over a slick funk backing my man screams and hollers about exactly that. Oh-kaaaaay. He should have included that R&B version of "Winter Wonderland" he sang on one 1975 ep of SNL - my man tore it up that time!!
Comments
Oh, but he did.
According to at least two different SNL bios, offscreen Morris was too much of a outsider to jell with the rest of the cast and crew, which might account for the lame roles he was usually given. And when Eddie Murphy first hit it big, he often claimed that the show's producers at first tried to make another "Garrett Morris" out of him by giving him "token" roles, but he saw them coming and started pushing for more challenging roles. Morris wasn't used as much as he should have been, but can't help but respect his talent.
You could tell he could sang whenever he was asked to do so in the skits.
We can simply chalk it up to "race" when explaining why he wasnt given better material.
Yeah, I've always read/seen that a lot of it had to do with the relationships the actor has with the writers as well. I can't imagine there were many, if any, african-american writers on the show. Morris probably wasn't buddy-buddy with them, and they probably weren't mad comfortable writing for an african-american cast member i.e. limited by their own "local black experience" or lack thereof.
GM is the man, though. His "get me a shotgun and kill every whitey I see" is still the shit.
Wonder what he would have sounded like doing more R&B-ish songs - old-school R&B?
I'll bet he would have cut Belushi & Ackroyd up. Who's the Blues Brother now?
He alluded to having a blues band when the Onion interviewed him some years back, but I haven't seen anything on the Net...
U can see his skills compared to the "Blues Bros" in the Julian Bond/"Motownish skit.
It's cheesy but I highly recommend it.
Yeah, they're playing it for laughs, but you can tell Morris could have been a good soul singer if he decided to go in that direction.
I don't know if he's cooled off since then, but I remember the Ebony/Jet Celebrity Showcase*** did a whatever-happened-to profile on Morris in the eighties, and he seemed mighty bitter, with every other word out of his mouth being censored.
[color:red]***this was a syndicated Entertainment Tonight-type magazine show presented by Ebony/Jet magazines[/color]
"Whether your Black Or a Honkey, Youre Gonna Like Pork Chops A'Chucky!!!"
Well considering all the love Eddie Murphy received for SNL and dudes not giving him a pioneer rep, Id be mad too.
Regardless dude went on to the Jamie Foxx Show and held it down as the Comedy vet there.
Ever see his explanation as to how he came up with this skit??
I feel like I have. Didn't he see a show that had a version where the race roles were reversed?
Yeah, I've read that this was true. It would be interesting to read the bios/experience/interveiews of/with just the african-american cast members of SNL over the years to compare and contrast what they went through.
I remember Chris Rock saying that he had some trouble on SNL because to be good on that show you have to be able to be lots of other people...impressions and such. He admitted that he's way better at being Chris Rock than doing impressions. This doesn't really relate to the writing thing really. I guess maybe because of this, writers weren't sure what they were going to get from Rock so they only wrote certain things for him. I don't know.
It's hard to speculate on the recent seasons because the phenomenon of shitty roles and sketches are in no way limited to the african-american cast members.
Eddie Murphy > Tim Meadows
As far as SNL itself goes......
Overall career I'd vote for Bill Murray.
Yes - my friend is very into this film and made me
watch it, and it was pretty entertaining. And Morris
steals the show, he's got all the best lines. Besides -
it's about karaoke ... that's like the official sport
of Soul Strut, right?
the G.O.A.T. episode of SNL is the one Don Rickles
hosted from the Murphy/Piscopo era ... the whole show
is total chaos, Rickles keeps going out of character
and making people crack up, and they keep abusing him.
What's the name of the book that covers the first 10 years of SNL? The cover has an cartoon illustration of the cast members. I read it about 9 years ago and the way they did Morris was quite foul. But we all know Hollywood's track record in regards to Black entertainers.
But that's the thing, though. Eddie Murphy was kinda out of line making snide references to Garrett Morris, although that could have been just cocky youth talking. But I will give him this: he was so talented that, if you notice, a lot of the roles the writers gave him were raceless. He was bound and determined not to get the silly "token" roles that Morris had, and he basically succeeded. As opposed to Morris himself - just about every skit he was in referred back to his ethnicity in some dumb, uncreative way.
That oral history that came out later says the same thing. When they get to talking about how poorly the females of the first SNL were treated, Morris snapped right back: "Either I was a woman with them or they were niggers with me, because I got the same raw deal." HEL-LO!
To be truthful, these DVD's reminded me how good Laraine Newman was. During her last couple of seasons on the show, they usually had her playing the same dope-addled L.A. hippie chick, and that was basically how I remembered her until these box sets came out. She was ALL OVER those first two seasons, playing a wide spectrum of roles. She could ham it up as well as Gilda Radner, but for whatever reason Gilda broke out and Laraine stayed in the back getting the "raw deal."
Specially since SNL was, and remains, based in New York, but I get the drift.
I always wonder if Morris and Murphy ever met? Did they bond, or was there a mutual resentment? Considering Morris' bad rep as the worst coke fiend from the early years that wasn't Belushi, it's good to see he's still continued to work.
Martin Lawrence's show, too.
Yes i forgot about that. That was basically his sitcom reemergence. The Radio station manager.