The estate of Bill Hicks reissuing his comedy discography, unearthing unreleased material

Busy times for the estate of the late great stand-up comedian Bill Hicks.

Tonight across America, cineplexes are hosting a special one-night-only screening of the comedian’s 1992 special, Relentless, plus a half-hour of exclusive interviews and clips curated by Bill’s older brother, Steve. Comedy Dynamics Presents: Bill Hicks, is presented by Fathom Events at 8 tonight local time. Consult this list of participating cinemas nationwide with Fathom Events.

On Tuesday, Comedy Dynamics is reissuing the entire Hicks discography for digital retailers, including his albums: Arizona BayDangerousFlying Saucer Tour12/16/1961Love, Laughter and Truth, Philosophy, Rant in E-Minor, Relentless, Revelations, and Salvation. His video catalog, meanwhile, will be available Tuesday on VOD plus Hulu, Roku, Amazon and iOS. And you’ll also be able to listen along Tuesday on Sirius XM’s Raw Dog Comedy Hits channel.

A DVD box set is due in August, while a new album of previously unreleased material from Hicks is coming in October.

Steve Hicks told fans on Reddit over the weekend: “There are hours and hours of both audio and video of Bill that has never been released. We are going through it now to determine what to release. Stay tuned!! Something new coming out at least by October of this year, more to follow. There’s some exciting stuff.”

And that’s not even including the music Bill Hicks recorded, too.

“Yes there are 13 other songs Bill wrote and recorded that we haven’t released yet,” Steve Hicks said. “Also, Marblehead Johnson, the group he had with his friends may eventually get re-released. And there are hours and hours of him playing around on the guitar with bits and pieces of song lyrics, that type of thing. So yep, probably will put out some more music. I always thought it might be a cool idea to have other musicians cover Bill’s songs and put out as an album. So many singers and bands are fans of Bill.”

Perhaps you’ll be able to see and hear that on an official Bill Hicks YouTube page.

Steve Hicks said the family is prepping a YouTube launch, “And our family owns all Bill’s material so there are no issues with that for us. It’s just a matter of what we choose to put out there.”

The only thing we haven’t yet seen is a Bill Hicks biopic.

Steve Hicks told fans on Reddit that his younger brother “stood alone” among his peers. “It’s one of the reasons there are struggles any time a conversation about a movie about Bill comes up — Who could actually pull off playing him?”

“We’ll see what happens,” he added. “There is still interest and conversation about doing a Bill movie.”

Sean L. McCarthy

Editor and publisher since 2007, when he was named New York's Funniest Reporter. Former newspaper reporter at the New York Daily News, Boston Herald and smaller dailies and community papers across America. Loves comedy so much he founded this site.

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