James Gregory is billed as “The Funniest Man In America,” and after you leave his show, sore from an hour of nonstop laughter, you’ll probably agree. The Georgia native is a frequent performer at the Comedy Catch in Chattanooga, and having been a longtime fan, I invited him for a lunchtime chat. Here are some excerpts from our conversation:
You say you didn’t start out in comedy the “normal” way: No sir. I was well into my thirties before I became a comedian. I had all kinds of jobs. I was a salesman for ten years. Encyclopedias, cookware, you name it. I wasn’t a funny salesman. I was on commission, I was trying to sell stuff!
So then fate intervened? Fate, luck, no doubt about it. I picked up a free newspaper on the street one day, because the rack with real newspapers was empty. There was an ad to participate in a comedy workshop on Sunday nights, so I figured, why not? I did that every week for about nine months. This was in 1982, and a guy who was starting a comedy club saw my picture in the paper, and managed to track me down.
And then you became a big star? Not quite. He hired me and another guy, and told us one would be the opening act, and the other would be the headliner. He flipped a coin, and the other guy won. So I was an opening act for quite a while.
What turned you into a headliner? Well, mainly I got funnier over time. But I was motivated. One night after my act, I was watching the headliner from the side of the room, and the club owner said, “What do you think of this guy?” I said, “He’s pretty good.” The owner said, “He’s not good enough to be making four times what you do!” I thought, what? I need to be making that kind of money! So I went for it, and I’m still around, thanks to the fans.
If it hadn’t worked out? When I first got into comedy, I was trying to get a franchise to be a log home dealer. Fortunately, that didn’t happen.
How does it feel to be welcomed by cheers and applause every time you’re introduced? I appreciate it every night, because that didn’t happen in the early days. I was nervous, I didn’t know how people would react. But they didn’t know me then, and I think I’m a lot funnier now than I was thirty years ago.
How do you write your jokes? (He takes my pen, and yellow legal pad) If you told me right now that I had to write a joke, and checked back with me in five hours, this yellow paper would still be blank. I can’t write a joke. I admire people who can write jokes, and especially the ones who can write funny TV shows.
What do you consider a funny show? “Everybody Loves Raymond” always makes me laugh. The character of Raymond’s dad, Frank, played by Peter Boyle has some great lines in every episode.
So if you don’t write jokes, where does your material come from? Just everyday life. I’m just me, it’s the way I talk, it’s the way I look. I can get laughs with my eyes, and my reactions. I get stories in odd places. I was out getting the mail, and my neighbor was talking about his crazy uncle who was scared of those modern calculators. “They don’t have wires, they’re not connected to anything!” He was convinced it was some evil object. The next time I was on the radio, I just started in on that story. I changed things around a little, and I made it my uncle, and it turned out funny. That’s how stories like that get in my act. Sometimes on stage, I’ll just think of something funny, and see where it goes from there.
You’ve been playing Chattanooga for more than thirty years. What do you love about us? The audiences are great, and it’s like working at home for me. It’s less than a two-hour drive from my home. Cities like Chattanooga and Birmingham, for me, are like you driving to work each day. It’s a nice break from long drives or flying somewhere.
What’s the best advice you ever got? Minnie Pearl saw me a couple of times, and you know in real life, she was a wealthy, classy lady. She’d call me “Funnyman.” She’d say, “Good job Funnyman, now don’t forget to save your money!” I think she’d known a lot of entertainers who didn’t save their money.
Did you follow her advice? I’m still working on it, somewhere between 150-200 shows a year.
And you’d better say, “It could be a law, I don’t know” at least once in your show. Well, it does come up. People like it.
My favorite is your Sunday after-dinner routine, and those relatives who had too much to eat, but keep going back for more. That’s my closer, I end my shows with that. It’ll probably be my closer for a long time.
Your show is very clean, compared to most comedy club performers. That’s unusual these days. It’s very simple. To me comedy is a business. It’s my business. I don’t have anything against comedians who talk dirty, in fact I think a lot of them are funny. And I’ll drop a few familiar “southern cuss words” in now and then, that’s just how we talk. But if you look at my audience, you’ll see three generations out there. Some people bring their teenage kids, some bring their parents. And they keep coming back for more. It’s just good business to me.
That sounds like job security. I’ll never go out of business, unless I retire, and why would I do that? People need a good laugh, and that’s why I’m here.
He is indeed a very funny man. My earliest memory of him would be a TV special produced by Bob Johnson of channel nine. That would probably be in the eighties.