Pigmeat Markham was far better known as a comedian than a musician, but in the 1960s he cut a series of novelty records in which he delivered his rhythmic, rhyming routines over frantic backdrops of bluesy funk that not only anticipated hip-hop by at least a decade, but landed him on the pop charts in the process. He began his career in 1917 in a traveling show with Bessie Smith, worked the chitlin' circuit for decades, and appeared in a handful of independent Black-cast features. One of his bits, "Here Comes the Judge," found its way onto the television show Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, and Markham recorded a musical version where he bellowed a rhyming version of his act as a hot R&B band cut the funk in the background. It became a Top 20 hit in 1968.