A Blues Singer and a Drag Queen Walk into a Bar: A History of Stand-up Comedy
Open Access DepositedThis dissertation examines the stand-up comedy albums and careers of four comedians who represent under researched threads in the history of stand-up comedy. The four comedians, Hattie Noel, Jackie “Moms” Mabley, Rae Bourbon, and Rusty Warren recorded groundbreaking stand-up comedy albums in the early 1960s, becoming some of the first to record live stand-up comedy on vinyl. Their contributions show how historically, women of color and queer people were some of the first performers to practice stand-up comedy and were groundbreaking innovators of the stand-up comedy album. As my title suggests, I argue that stand-up comedy emerges, in part, from underrecognized origin points in the blues and drag performance. In other words, blues singers and drag queens in the 1920s and 1930s were precursors to today’s stand-up comedians. This research also introduces performers who told jokes on stage, but also sang comic songs—pulling from a repertoire of many talents to negotiate the culture industries of the mid-20th century. First, the career and records of Hattie Noel, read along with Moms Mabley’s, show how Black women blues singers of Black vaudeville circuits brought the cadence and themes of the blues to the comedy stage, revealing striking legacies of the blues in stand-up comedy. Next, analysis of the experimental records of drag performer Rae Bourbon shows how the long history of drag performance and the use of camp humor shaped stand-up comedy. Then, Rusty Warren’s records and their fanatic reception show how stand-up comedy albums planted the seeds of the sexual revolution through laughter. Despite circulating relatively underground, these comedy albums sold in large numbers, impacting a generation of listeners and shaping a new genre of performance—stand-up comedy.
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