tuning his Delirious act: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rFRk8GYZIQM

His original manager, Richie Tienken, opened up the Comic Strip in 1976 and tells the story of discovering Eddie in the late 70s when he was a member of the Identical Triplets (a comedy group consisting of Bob Nelson, Rob Bartlett, and Murphy, that worked LI comedy clubs) in the Comic Strip book. Considering that Tienken was managing Eddie when he landed SNL in 1980, Eddie's premier standup career can be contextualized in late 70's, and since Bartlett and Nelson asked Tienken to audition Eddie for the Comic Strip, as told in Tienken's book, we can confidently say that Eddie Murphy was working LI clubs as a teenage and NYC in later teens prior to SNL. One must not forget that teenagers tend to be less mobile than adults, so the fact that he wasn't a road warrior prior to his ascent isn't that material, but unless all the witnesses to early Eddie are lying, including the guy that managed him for the first 11 years of his career, Murphy put it in a solid 5 years of standup before SNL.