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Not just a blue-collar man |
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Written by Dan England
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Thursday, 10 January 2008 |
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Bill Engvall spent a good chunk of his career trying to find himself.
He was lost, but he knew he wanted to be a comic. That was the only thing that came naturally to him. He was born in Galveston, Texas, but he moved around a lot when he was a child and humor always seemed to make him friends.
And yet as naturally as comedy came to him, his act was pretty unnatural. He worked as the host at the Dallas Comedy Center, where he warmed up the crowd for acts such as Garry Shandling, Robin Williams and Jerry Seinfeld, and rather than learn from guys who had distinct styles, he usually just emulated them the week they were there.
He wore parachute pants and jackets with the sleeves pushed up and string ties and whatever fad was around at the time, and his act was just as trendy.
This went on for 10 years.
After that decade, his wife, Gail, suggested he stop trying to be other people and start being himself. He was a guy who wore boots, jeans and a shirt. He trusted Gail, and for good reason: They were married in 1982 and have two children. She stuck with him during the lean years, when he moved to Los Angeles and floated around for years, even playing the role of “Chud #14” in the cheesy horror movie “C.H.U.D.”
Once he was himself, he found the confidence to tell the stories that cracked up his friends — the ones he thought were funny. As it turns out, his humor — the kind of relaxed, laid-back country style that many still call “blue collar” comedy — was just starting to get popular, thanks to Jeff Foxworthy.
“You work so hard to find a style,” Engvall said with a laugh in a phone interview, “and it’s right in front of you.”
The last 15 years have been pretty good to Engvall. He’s had some gold albums, the hot-selling Blue Collar Comedy Tour he started with Ron White, Larry the Cable Guy and Foxworthy, and now his own sitcom, the Bill Engvall Show, in its second season on TBS.
Yet as much as he was able to find himself, he found himself lost once again once he grouped himself in the Blue Collar quartet. One of his more famous bits was about Slim Jims and his suggestion to drill holes in them so they could fill them with beer, sort of like what Reese’s did with peanut butter and chocolate. But he’s not Larry the Cable Guy, and, though it took a while for him to realize it, he’s not Foxworthy.
“I am the least blue collar of the four of us,” Engvall said. “I’m the least redneck. I love country, but I also love blues and jazz, and I love a great glass of red wine.”
But rather than embrace those differences, he spent the first few years as a “Blue Collar” comic trying to be more like them. He admits to being a little embarrassed at his forced, thick country accent on “Here’s Your Sign,” the 1997 album that helped propel him to stardom thanks to the title track with Travis Tritt. It was the top-selling comedy album of that year, and that’s what helped him land on tour with Foxworthy, which eventually led to the Blue Collar tour.
“Let’s face it, at that point, I was a club act with an album,” Engvall said. “When I first started, the only gauge I had was Foxworthy, and he was very southern, and I figured that was the way I had to go.”
So when the tour started, he would jump on stage under the blare of rock music and tried to be as in-your-face as possible. He shakes his head at that today. He saw what he was doing after a conversation with one of the four, Ron White, at a bar after a show.
“He said, ‘I used to hate working behind you because you would just gut a room,’” Engvall said. “You had that slow delivery, and you would just take over a room.’ I had gotten away from being Bill because I was so intent on beating Jeff. We decided that night that we didn’t have to be bigger than Jeff.”
He loved the Blue Collar Comedy Tour, he said during the interview. Foxworthy taught him how to be a concert performer, and he loved the other guys. The time at the end of the show, when the four would gather on stage and just tell stories and laugh together, was always his favorite part because the friendship was genuine.
“I hope this isn’t the end,” Engvall said. “That was the most fun I’ve ever had in my life.”
Yet Engvall also relishes the chance to go out on his own and earn his own living, as he put it. His latest album, “15 Degrees Off Cool,” features more of the real Bill, he said, with less of the accent and more jokes about his family.
“The way I describe my style now is we’re in the living room, and I happen to be the funny guy talking,” he said. “You can come in and just relax and have a great time.”
He’s proud of his TV show, where he plays a married family therapist living in Denver with three children.
“Now we just need to get this writer’s strike out of the way so we can go back to work,” Engvall said.
This is where his blue collar side comes out. Engvall’s a member of the writer’s guild, but he feels bad for the assistants and key grips and people working under the writers because those people are out of a job, too.
“My brother-in-law pours concrete,” he said. “That’s work. That’s a job. We don’t have jobs, and I think maybe we’ve gotten a little off-kilter. Maybe we need a little more perspective on what we do. I tell jokes. I don’t work. I don’t have anything against writers, but we all really don’t work, and we’re putting a lot of people out of work.”
He was nervous about that TV show at first. It’s different than his stand-up act. But that’s what he wanted, a show that showed who he was outside of the blue-collar comedy. The key to life, though, is to enjoy who you are in the moment, he said. Halfway through the “Blue Collar” comedy craze, he went back to who he was and began to enjoy the tour and the success that came with it.
Now, with the TV show, he’s finally learned that, although people enjoy his blue-collar comedy, they also seem to like the man behind it.
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