Ray Charles "Night Time Is The Right Time"

I was reading this article in the AV Club about sitcoms in the 80s, which posits that The Cosby Show was one of the most important sitcoms of its era, if not of all time.

And it got me thinking: The Cosby Show was a strange paradox.

On the one hand, the sitcom couldn't have been more mild-mannered and tame. Plots revolved around peer pressure and homework and never approached a tone harsher than good-natured geniality. It was no more profound or adventurous than scores of shows that came before it, or after it.

And yet on the other hand, The Cosby Show has this enormous cultural legacy. It brought a version of the African-American experience (perfectly normal, largely apolitical and upper middle class) to a viewing audience that hadn't seen a minority family on television without overt and often stereotypical allusions to race. (Not everyone thinks this is a good thing, including two of my favorite UMass Professors)

For me, not surprisingly, the cultural impact was more musical than social.

For me, and for my teenage friends, The Cosby Show was our first experience with more than a couple of significant African-American and Latino musicians.

I know this is hard for folks who are, say, over 55 to believe, but my first exposure to people like Tito Puente and Dizzy Gillespie was through Cosby. (I remember Lena Horne being on there too, but I already knew who she was, from Sesame Street)

I'm sure I knew "Hit The Road Jack" by that age, but I can't say that I knew much about Ray Charles. And I'm fairly certain I'd not heard "Night Time Is The Right Time" at that point in my life.

But when the memorable scene in the video below aired, it motivated me to head to the stereo cabinet, and find Dad's banged up LP copy of "Ray Charles Greatest Hits." It didn't have "Night Time Is The Right Time," on it, but that only encouraged me to explore more.

So thanks, Cosby Show, for both a better understand of race, perhaps also a worse understanding of race and certainly a better understanding of Ray.