By the time this album was released in 1968, Bill Cosby was already a star; he'd earned four GRAMMYs® for his comedy albums and had done Emmy-winning work on TV's I Spy. But To Russell… spoke to people in a special way and remains one of Cosby's most beloved recordings. It wasn't the comedian's low-key, entre nous delivery or his reminiscences of boyhood that set the album apart—those had been on his previous releases. It was the nearly half-hour eponymous monologue occupying the album's second half. In it, Cosby brings us back to his youth in a Philadelphia housing project, as he and his brother compete, conspire, and coexist while cowering from the discipline of their irritable father. It's a storytelling tour de force beyond anything else Cosby had recorded up to that point—but as importantly, it was incredibly funny, as much for its detail as for its universality. And it paved the way for much of what Cosby would offer in the years to come.