There aren't many comedians funnier than Steve Martin. Though the gray-haired funnyman only spent the better part of a decade performing as a stand-up before pursuing acting, writing, and even bluegrass originals, Martin's brilliant blend of highbrow, lowbrow and absurdist humor made him one of the most head-turning entertainers of his generation. Rhino Records will celebrate his funniest sides with a new box set in November.

Steve in a Box: The Warner Years (1977-1981) brings together all four of Martin's albums for Warner Bros. Records, which became some of the best-selling comedy albums of all time. It'll be available November 15 as a 4CD set available everywhere, and a 4LP set available exclusively at Rhino's web store. Comedy historian Kliph Nesteroff writes liner notes for both sets.

Martin was no stranger to the comedy scene in the near-decade before the release of Let's Get Small in 1977. The onetime store clerk and magician at Disneyland dropped out of UCLA but utilized his credits toward a philosophy major in a groundbreaking flavor of comedy that eschewed punchlines for non-sequiturs and a serious spin on silliness. "What if there were no indicators? What if I created tension and never released it?" he later told Smithsonian magazine. "What if I headed for a climax, but all I delivered was an anticlimax? What would the audience do with all that tension?...If I kept denying them the formality of a punch line, the audience would eventually pick their own place to laugh, essentially out of desperation." That edge helped him break into writing for television, where he picked up an Emmy for his work on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, and he honed his stand-up act - sprinkling in idiosyncrasies like playing the banjo and props like balloon animals or a fake arrow through the head - opening for bands like Toto and the Carpenters and making a home out of the Boarding House club in San Francisco. It was there that the material for Let's Get Small was taped: Martin got laughs for everything from surreal, bluegrass yarns about his family ("Grandmother's Song") to faux outrage at lighting choices (the catchphrase-inducing bit "Excuse Me"). Incredibly, for a comedy album, Let's Get Small reached the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 and earned Martin a platinum disc from the Recording Industry Association of America.

Almost overnight, Martin was a bona fide comedy star, meshing well with the cast of the hip NBC variety show Saturday Night Live - a program he's hosted 16 times during its 50-year run - along with guest turns on programs like The Muppet Show and an eye toward Hollywood (within a year, he'd cowrite and star in the comedy classic The Jerk). Second album A Wild and Crazy Guy is the perfect snapshot of Martin's rising star, literally transitioning mid-album from a set at the Boarding House to a thunderous audience at the Red Rocks Amphitheatre just outside of Denver, Colorado. Here, he reprised his gleefully inept SNL character Georg Festrunk, the hapless bachelor whose catchphrase gives the album its title. He skewered the pomposity of college education, admitted that his real name was lip-driven onomatopoeia, and closed with a real delightful oddity: an original novelty song about the young Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, the recent subject of a traveling museum exhibit. "King Tut," backed by The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (for whom Martin used to open) as the "Toot Uncommons," was a Top 20 pop hit, and A Wild and Crazy Guy went double platinum, peaking at No. 2 on the pop charts and winning a Grammy Award.

By his own admission, Martin knew he wasn't long for stand-up, and 1979's Comedy is Not Pretty! is the first sign of that shift. Less focused than previous material, the album (which missed the Top 20) balances some stand-up bits with straight-ahead banjo performances ("Drop Thumb Medley") and a reading of the title tale from his short-story collection Cruel Shoes, released that same year. Two years later, The Steve Martin Brothers coincided with Martin's unannounced hiatus from stand-up, which lasted for much of the rest of his career (a 2016 tour with longtime friend Martin Short notwithstanding). The album featured a short side of comedy culled from appearances in Las Vegas and Hollywood's Comedy Store, and a second side of early '70s banjo compositions recorded on borrowed studio time from The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band. (Martin has recorded five albums of original banjo works since 2009.)

Martin's career has taken him all sorts of places, from comedy films like Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid, Three Amigos!, Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and the Father of the Bride films, to books like 2000's novella Shopgirl and the 2007 memoir Born Standing Up, all the way to his latest venture, the acclaimed Hulu comedy Only Murders in the Building, which he co-created and stars in with Short and Selena Gomez. But Steve in a Box is poised to be a fine reminder of how everyone first fell in love with his comedy gifts. And if you don't believe us? Well, ex-cuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me! Pre-order your copies below; as an Amazon affiliate, we earn from qualifying purchases.

Steve in a Box: The Warner Years (1977-1981) (Warner/Rhino R2 726900, 2024)

CD: Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K. / Amazon Canada
LP: Rhino.com

CD 1: Let's Get Small (released as Warner Bros. BSK 3090, 1977)

1. Ramblin' Man/Theme from Ramblin' Man
2. Vegas
3. Let's Get Small
4. Smoking
5. One Way to Leave Your Lover
6. Mad At My Mother
7. Excuse Me
8. Grandmother's Song
9. Funny Comedy Gags
10. Closing

CD 2: A Wild and Crazy Guy (released as Warner Bros. HS 3238, 1978)

1. I'm Feelin' It
2. Philosophy/Religion/College/Language
3. Creativity in Action/I'm in the Mood for Love
4. A Wild and Crazy Guy
5. A Charitable Kind of Guy
6. An Expose
7. Cat Handcuffs
8. You Naive Americans
9. My Real Name
10. King Tut

CD 3: Comedy is Not Pretty! (released as Warner Bros. HS 3392, 1979)

1. Born to Be Wild
2. The All Being
3. McDonald's/Men's Underwear
4. Drop Thumb Medley
5. Googlephonics
6. Hostages
7. Cruel Shoes
8. Comedy is Not Pretty
9. How to Meet a Girl
10. Rubberhead
11. Jackie O. and Farrah F.
12. You Can Be a Millionaire

CD 4: The Steve Martin Brothers (released as Warner Bros. BSK 3477, 1981)

1. Cocktail Show, Vegas: American Photography/A Scientific Question/What I Believe/A Show Biz Moment
2. Comedy Store, Hollywood: The Real Me/Love God/Make the Rent/The Gospel Maniacs
3. Sally Goodin'
4. Saga of the Old West
5. John Henry
6. Saga (Reprise)
7. Pitkin County Turn Around
8. Hoedown at Alice's
9. Song of Perfect Spaces
10. Freddie's Lilt, Parts I and II
11. Waterbound
12. Banana Banjo