Mutha Is Half A Word is the debut album by American comic and actress LaWanda Page, released in 1971 on the Laff Records label.
Mutha Is Half A Word | ||||
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Studio album by LaWanda Page | ||||
Released | 1971 | |||
Recorded | 1970 | |||
Genre | Comedy | |||
Label | Laff | |||
LaWanda Page chronology | ||||
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The comic, born in Ohio and raised in St. Louis, MO as Alberta Peal, used only the first name of her stage name for the duration of her recordings with Laff Records and for the duration of her career as a stand-up comedian, which began in the 1960s after careers as a strip dancer and vaudeville performer. Some of Page's most famous stand-up monologues are included in this album including "The Blind Woman" and "Smell the Sardines", bits she performed on TV later in her career. She also parodies the hit "Winchester Cathedral" in which she explains that a man working at a funeral parlor discovered a cork in a man's butt, taking the cork out only to hear the butt singing the song.
The title of the book Mutha Is Half a Word: Intersections of Folklore, Vernacular, Myth, and Queerness in Black Female Culture (Black Performance and Cultural Criticism) is a reference to this album as it stands as a stereotype of modern black female humor.[1]