From: Bob Davis (earthjuice_at_prodigy.net)
Date: 2005-12-11 05:06:32
And now he is among his peers
Yeah, I will miss Richard Pryor.
The first time I ever heard Richard Pryor utter those words, I never really
thought about the fact those words could make a fitting statement about
Pryor himself.
However, right about now, those words seem to be quite fitting, don't they?
Richard Pryor told us EVERYTHING about himself.
He told us about his childhood
He told us about his parents
He told us about his school
He told us about his drug use
He told us about his jail time
He told us about his wives
He told us about his children
He told us about his girlfriends
He told us how he set himself on fire
He told us how he recovered
One of the things that we don't have to worry about with Richard Pryor is
that his life hasn't been properly documented.
He took the time to do something unusual....
(he documented it HIMSELF)
In addition to telling us about himself on stage, he wrote an autobiograpghy
and he did a movie about himself (in which he stared in of course.....lol)
People from all over the world write to me everyday and ask me the
question...
"What is Funk"?
I STILL don't have a definition of it after 30 + years
However I do know what it's face looks like :)
(It looks like Richard Pryor)
His picture should be in the dictionary, right next to the word F-U-N-K.
Richard Pryor, while admitedly not perfect, was one of the most influential
voices for the potential of what Black America could (and still might)
become.
People like Richard Pryor, Jimi Hendrix, Miles Davis (a few badd mo fo's who
are dead) and others are some of the leading cultural icons produced by
Black america during the 20th century. While they were alive/healthy men
like this defined for US what THE FUNK was/is/could be, and they did so on
their own terms, despite the conventional wisdom of the times being against
them.
In Pryor's case he gave us a way to view the world, events and people thru
the eyes of a regular brotha. He was ONE OF US and he wasn't afraid to tell
the world, regardless of any potential career ramifications.
Someone once told me...
"Funk is like Jazz on acid..."
Well...
"Richard Pryor was like Bill Cosby on acid..."
I just got thru listening to the album "Craps (After Hours)".
I've probably listened to that album 100 times in whole or in part over the
course of my life.
In fact there was even a point in time where I had most of the lines
memorized.
The routines are pure genius on one level.
Yet at the same time they sound just like real life.
Today they would call Richard Pryor "politically incorrect".
He uses all of the "seven words you can't say on radio" + the N-word, Faggot
and every other "politically incorrect" varient that you could possibly
think of.
But once again it sounds like "real life".
One of the things I learned about Richard Pryor from reading his
autobiography is that he wanted to be accepted by the "mainstream".
At first he wanted to be accepted the same way that Bill Cosby was.
Later he demanded acceptance from the mainstream on his own terms.
But once he got the "mainstream" acceptance, he was really just a shell of
his former self.
Back in the 1970's my friends and I used to sit around and listen to Richard
Pryor's LP's right along with our Funkadelic, Miles Davis, Shuggie Otis,
EWF, etc. LP's. For us Richard Pryor was just as important a part of the
culture that we were a part of. People forget, Richard Pryor was so large,
that not only does he open up the movie Wattstax, but Patti LaBelle used to
be his opening act on his concert tours and this was WAY BEFORE the
"mainstream" even knew who Richard Pryor was!!!
Yeah, I will miss Richard Pryor.
He was one of "our voices".
He wore the reality of our pain, right on his sleeve.
He made us laugh, in spite of the reality of that pain.
But more importantly, he made us think.
His voice allowed us to know that our pain was universal.
For example, in "Craps (After Hours)" when Richard Pryor talks about being
first followed, then being busted and then beaten by the cops in the middle
of the night, he is making a statement. It's a statement about the reality
of that situation not just for himself but as a listener, I know that he
knows that I know that it's the same experience for me and every other Black
man in a car late at night.
"Craps (After Hours)" was made in 1971, a full 20 years before the Rodney
King case made the acronym D.W.B. (Driving While Black) a common term in the
American lexicon.
So was Richard Pryor a "man before his time"?
Nope
Richard Pryor was a "man of his time".
He spoke to the reality that he knew.
He spoke to the reality of what he knew we all went through.
His voice was strong, articulate and accurate.
Yeah, I will miss Richard Pryor.
However, the reality is that I have been missing Richard Pryor for a long
time.
And I don't think that I am alone....
NP: "Craps (After Hours)"
--Richard Pryor
----------------------------------------
Bob Davis
earthjuice_at_prodigy.net
----------------------------------------
<a href="http://www.soul-patrol.com"> SOUL-PATROL.COM WEBSITE
www.soul-patrol.com </a>
<a href="http://www.soul-patrol.com/newsletter"> JOIN THE FREE BI-WEEKLY:
SOUL-PATROL
NEWSLETTER www.soul-patrol.com/newsletter </a>
<a href="http://www.soul-patrol.net"> SOUL-PATROL.NET RADIO
www.soul-patrol.net </a>
<a href="http://www.soul-patrol.com/chat"> INTERACT & LISTEN: SOUL-PATROL
CHAT ROOM
www.soul-patrol.com/chat </a>
----------------------------------------