"The Very Best Of Richard Pryor" (1982)

I've known about this one for quite a while, but just never got around to picking it up. Maybe because (going by the record labels) it consisted of things that I already had, and I pretty much knew that it wasn't going to contain anything "new" or different here. I found an eBay listing, where I bid $1.50 for a used cassette copy...and I won it. And then it showed up in my mailbox four days later.

I was right. Nothing new here. The over-excited intro from Are You Serious??? opens the show, as does Richard's whispered intro from that set. Then it cuts to the version of "Super Nigger" from Who Me? I'm Not Him...but as soon as Richard announces, "with x-ray vision that enables him to see through everything except Whitey!", it abruptly cuts over to a lengthy section from the Craps album (pretty much the "title song" of it, so to speak), and then side one continues and concludes with the last few minutes from side one of Are You Serious??? with the bits about the submarine pep-talk, and the hillbilly guy calling cadence in the Army.

Side two...no better. More selections from Are You Serious??? and Craps, plus a bit about Jesus from the Outrageous album. And then side two concludes with--you guessed it!--yet ANOTHER presentation of "Black Ben" (aka "Prison Play"). Producer/compiler David Drozen must have really liked this bit to have included it on so many of RIchard's Laff albums.

The album cover seems a little strange and eerie now...back when it was released, it would make you think of Richard's otherwise hilarious bit about being busted by the cops while sneaking home at night, but in the day and age of Trayvon Martin and George Floyd, the back cover now seems disturbingly prophetic.