Stephen K Amos on Redd Foxx: ‘Rude, crude, funny and fearless’

http://www.theguardian.com/stage/2015/mar/11/redd-foxx-stephen-k-amos-comedy-heroes

Version 0 of 1.

When I visited Nigeria in 1986, there were two American sitcoms on the television. One was Good Times and the other was Sanford and Son, a remake of the UK’s Steptoe and Son. To my young mind, this was revolutionary as both shows had black casts. Red Foxx played Sanford (the TV character shared his own real surname), and I was bemused by how his hair and skin tone appeared to perfectly match his moniker.

Sanford and Son was funny and edgy, and Foxx’s comic timing was superb. I was unaware at that point that he was a seasoned professional standup. For a young English kid having seen few, if any, mainstream black British sitcoms, it made a huge impact on me – as well as my entire family.

Six years later, back in England, when I was discussing comedy with my future agent, I was shocked to discover that Red Foxx had released standup albums. I think I was given a cassette copy of The Best of Red Foxx. It was crude and rude and definitely a reflection of his experience of performing variously to all-black, all-white and mixed audiences in a particularly difficult time in America. It was his fearless approach that made his standup so provocative.

Foxx was at the top of his game on the Vegas nightclub scene when Sammy Davis Jr and Dean Martin were sipping Martinis at the bar. He lived hard and played hard. Smoky-voiced and chain-smoking on stage, he had the audience creasing up with material he said was blue, vulgar and nasty.

Related: Comedy gold: On Location with Redd Foxx

He had honed his style playing back-alley joints with singing legends such as Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey and Louis Armstrong. He could sing, too, deeply and dirtily, full of blues, when he wanted to. A cool, street-smart act, Foxx could talk to anyone: he riffed with the crowd, the band and the ushers. In the 1950s, he played one of the few New York comedy clubs to admit non-white performers. He tried to tone down his material, but soon realised that he should play his regular show in his regular style; at the end of the day, he said, “If they’re coming to my show, they know what they’re in for.”

He was playing to packed-out houses well into his 60s – especially when he went home to Chicago, where he’d start his set with Chicago (That Toddling Town); while Sinatra’s version of that song was light and high, Foxx’s was low, cracked and full of feeling.

He was already 50 or so when he got his big TV break playing Sanford, and in doing so became about as close to the mainstream as a black performer could get at the time. But he still died in debt. Talking of Sanford and Son, Foxx said: “The show doesn’t drive home a lesson, but it can open up people’s minds enough for them to see how stupid every kind of prejudice can be.”