Paul Mooney - BB King’s, NYC, 1.16.14
by Michael Sherer
Posted: Feb 2014
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- photo by Michael Sherer
As a former writer for Richard Pryor, television’s Sanford & Son and others, Paul Mooney has been in the big-time comedy business since the early ‘70’s.
Mooney has a conversational, free flowing approach to deliver his wealth of material, and did so from a couch on the center of the stage. Next to him was an ice bucket with bottle of champagne in it, which he didn’t touch. It became a source of dialogue toward the end of the show after a girl in the front, right at the stage, asked Mooney when he was going to at least open it. He asked her why she was worried about it, and was able to humorously riff on this for a while. He wound up having an assistant give the girl and her three girl friends the bottle and ice bucket when he left the stage. (Mooney never did open it.)
Mooney often referenced “niggers,” and common situations they find themselves in. This is something many black comics do, as a way to lighten the heavy burden of the plight they’ve endured for so long. It’s “playing along” with the stigma, so to speak. Police treatment of blacks, and their civil rights, was addressed in depth by Mooney.
Also discussed was how several black singers have changed a lot from their beginnings “out of the stall,” as Mooney put it. He pointed out how they started out rough and tough and gradually smoothed out to the point of being virtually unrecognizable. Queen Latifah was one example.
There was plenty of dirty language and subject matter, in the tradition of the ground breaking black comedians of the ‘50’s, Redd Foxx being the most well known, who were making what were euphemistically called “Blue records.” It’s a raucous style that gives a big middle finger to the highly tamed entrapments that had heretofore been placed on all performers, and especially minorities.
Mooney is forever connected to that legacy through his being an integral part of the lives of legends such as Pryor, who themselves came out of this reality in terms of greatly influencing their outlooks, ethos and personas onstage and off. It never fails to hit home and be very humorous to audiences, at any age, as long as they understand it’s all an inside joke.