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Ask a young person what they know about Steve Martin and they'll probably tell you he's that guy from those old Cheaper By the Dozen films who's now quite funny on Twitter. And if they do tell you that, you should immediately and forcefully insist they go away and listen to Let's Get Small, ideally several times in a row.

Martin's first standup album was recorded over several performances in San Francisco in 1977 – a time when his showbiz stock was rising fast. Forging a career before there was any kind of comedy circuit, he'd spent years honing his talents in folk clubs, touring relentlessly under a self-imposed deadline – he'd quit comedy if he'd not made it by the time he was 30.

The shows on Let's Get Small mark a point where, with his arbitrary cut-off point already two years behind him, it was clear the big time was just around the corner. Listening to these recordings, its easy to see why the public would gleefully take his brand of clever/silly conceptual comedy into their hearts so quickly.

An accomplished magician, actor and banjo player, Martin threw every one of his talents into his standup repertoire, melding them into a gleefully chaotic hotchpotch that felt loose and anarchic – yet it was crafted with obsessive care and attention to detail, and was like nothing else around.



He would later write, in the memoir Born Standing Up: "I was linking the unlinkable, blending economy and extravagence, non-sequiters with the conventional. I was all over the place, sluicing the gold from the dirt, honing the edge that confidence brings … I believed it was important to be funny now, while the audience was watching, but it was also important to be funny later, when the audience was home and thinking about it."

Let's Get Small sold by the truckload – propelled by word of mouth, a high-profile feature in Rolling Stone and, most significantly, his appearances on the hot new TV show of the day, Saturday Night Live. Greater and greater fame ensued, and his audiences would get bigger and bigger, until he walked away from standup entirely in 1981– just four years after this debut was released.



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There are another three standup albums available – Wild and Crazy Guy, Comedy Is Not Pretty and The Steve Martin Brothers, but, given how visual his comedy is, you'd be better off trying to track down some DVDs. Steve Martin Live is tremendous, but only available on secondhand VHS, so maybe think about getting the Steve Martin: The Television Stuff box set, which features several standup specials and Saturday Night Live appearances. The memoir Born Standing Up is a must-read, not just for Martin fans but for anyone with an interest in live comedy. And if you're somehow only just coming across Steve Martin for the first time, there's a tonne of excellent films to catch up with – The Jerk, The Man With Two Brains and Dirty Rotten Scoundrels should make for a triple bill that will convert you to lifelong Martin fandom.



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