Bill Hicks, recent high school graduate, performing in Houston, Texas. 

I think he started s ealing out of the house &;doing stand up at age 16 or maybe before, so he'd been doing this for 3 years or more already. Times were different in those days, and clubs didn't check ages in a lot of areas of the country.

Yeah he'd been doing it for a year or two already by this time

Will Carroll - incredibly sharp at 19. I can't even remember what idiocy I was involved in when I was that age. Practically incapable of stringing together a coherent thought.

@Mark Gaiennie Sooo, they had stand up shows in the middle of the day? LOL, okay...

I started dating him around 15 years old. I went to Stratford with him. He was some strangely gifted old soul who had wisdom, maturity and comic genius from a very young age.

Agreed. I'm from Mississippi, where he is buried in his family plot in Leakesville. Ould have been great to have known him, for I didn't know he existed until a few years after he died.

@@landryprichard6778 like a lot of us

an hero

Even Carlin called him a "comic genius".

His philosophy holds dearest for me but the mum and dad's bits are definitely the funniest for me too

He’s larger than life

Bill Hicks could read the audience well. I saw a video of a corporate gig, which he did for a bunch of business stiffs in Texas, and he mainly did Texas/Oklahoma jokes, because he knew in that setting, that the audience would feel too restricted to allow themselves to laugh at anything too edgy (Of course nowadays, everything is "too edgy" for the wider audience). In his early days, comedy specials weren't so common, as they would soon become on cable TV, so a good stand up comic, would play to the audience in front of him, rather than the wider TV, video, and later RU-vid audience.

Hell yeah

Fuck yeah!

My intuition tells me that is intended...

We have him... the magic of recording, I've been a fan 20 years now

@@joesaintjames6221 It's interesting how he died when I was 2, and it took another ~20 years for me to discover him. Without tape I would've never discovered such a great human being, and I would've never learnt the wisdom and integrity he had to share. So wish I could've met the guy, told him I love him, reassure that the good will someday win over evil. Yet, I wasn't even born when he was alive on this planet...

I remember the day I heard it the place and the time. He was my John Lennon that no one had heard of.

Just realized I’ve outlived him. Blagh.

Yeah I wonder if they took him out. Or it was the 15? Years of continuous chain smokin

Just take his routines and substitute todays names. Good for Bill, bad for us, the material holds up.

@@wtfrocks8663 - So true. He was WAY ahead of his time.

Uncancellable

I do it all the time unaware and think of the bill sketch and smile😊

I do it at home all the time unconsciously and it always makes me think of this 😂😂😂

looooooool ^this - well played

He kept going to kwik kut

Nah, Billy Ray Cyrus had a mullet... Having the back grow out doesn't make it a mullet. ;)

@@all_invite_0hm But having the top cut does.

@@19RaxR91 Well it would, if it were cut short, which it isn't. It's actually grown out a bit. ;)

Legend. Another great one from early on was Dave Chappelle. His style wasn't really honed in yet but he was already funny AF in the early days. Some people are just naturally comedic but only a few and far between