Whoa, WFMU’s Debbie D and company have gone bonkers over at the Rock ‘n’ Soul Ichiban site.
There are photos of Phil Spector, circa 1958, looking remarkably sedate. A picture of Tennessee Ernie Ford standing atop a pile of coal, advertising “Sixteen Tons.” A portrait of burlesque star Coco Barr brandishing a pair of pistols.
And, of course, there’s music galore: The Collins Kids, performing on the U.S. Air Force’s Country Music Time show. Big Star. Dexter Romweber. “The Patio Twist.” And an incredible live stream of “obscure ’50s and ’60s rock ‘n’ soul.” I’m listening to Huey Smith and the Clowns right now!
In other WFMU news, the Trashmen will be performing at the Record Fair, slated for Manhattan’s Metropolitan Pavilion on October 23rd, 24th and 25th!
While Henry Gray has lived in the sleepy hamlet of Scotlandville, Louisiana, just north of Baton Rouge, for nearly 40 years, he is the obvious heir to the Chicago blues piano throne. Why, one might well ask? He gets the crown, via 25 years of playing in the Windy City during the golden age of Chicago blues. While he is best known for his lengthy tenure with Howlin’ Wolf, Gray also backed a virtual who’s who of legendary Chicago blues artists in the studio, and on the bandstand.
Gray’s style was, and still is, instantly recognizable. Rather than play chords like most of his contemporaries, Gray instead plays a busy cluster of notes on his right hand, overtop of the solid blues or boogie bass that he plays with his left hand. His style shone brightest on Wolf’s early 1960s recordings like, “Tail Dragger,” “Goin’ Down Slow” and “You’ll Be Mine.” But, even earlier, he enhanced Billy Boy Arnold’s, “I Wish You Would,” G. L. Crockett’s, “Look Out Mabel,” and Jimmy Rogers, “Blues All Day Long,” to name but a few.
Born January 19, 1923, at Kenner, La, he moved with his family to rural Alsen, La, when he was one year old. Little Henry began playing piano at the age of 10. He took formal lessons, but in 2002 he admitted, “There was no feeling in doing that.”
Gray’s parents were church-goers, and hoped their son would confine his playing to spirituals. However, at the age of 16 he was offered a job playing secular music at a local juke joint. Perplexed, his parents agreed when they realized their son was going to make a pocketful of money every night.
Gray had an aunt in Chicago, and in 1939, he visited her for a week. Taken aback by the active music scene there, he promised himself he’d soon be back. Unfortunately, WW II intervened and Gray found himself in the South Pacific until his honorable discharge in 1946.
“I was back in Louisiana a week and then took a train to Chicago,” said Gray. “My aunt was still there and I stayed with her a good while. I worked in a steel mill, but went to clubs at night. When I got there, I played with Big Bill Broonzy, Tampa Red and the Sonny Boy Williamson that got murdered.”
Gray would meed “Big” Maceo Merriweath, who became Gray’s biggest influence. He also hustled spare change with guys like Little Walter, playing music in Jew Town. In the early 1950s, he joined Little Hudson’s Shower’s Rain group which was a fixture at the Upstairs Lounge on the Southside.
In 1952, Gray entered the studio for the first time to accompany Jimmy Rodgers on his Chess recordings of, “Chicago Bound,” and “Blues All Day Long.”
“I went on the road with Jimmy,” said Gray. “He played with Muddy Waters. But when he had a record out that made a little noise, he’d leave and put a band together.”
The following year was a busy year for Gray as he backed Little Walter, Morris Pejoe and made his first solo recordings for the Checker label under the guise, “Little Henry,” The following year, he joined Little Walter’s Jukes on a cross country tour and recorded, “Who Will Be Next,” with Howlin’ Wolf, who had just recently moved north from Memphis.
The year 1955 remained a busy one for Gray as he split time between the Red Devil Trio and the Jukes. He also found time to record with Billy Boy Arnold—”I Wish You Would,” Jimmy Reed’s, “I Ain’t Got You,” and Jimmy Rodgers’, “Blues All Day Long.” Otis Spann was clearly Chess producer, Leonard Chess’, first choice on piano, but when Spann was on the road with Muddy Waters, Gray often got the call.
“I recorded with Junior Wells, Jimmy Reed, Billy Boy and Bo Diddley, but I was never part of their band,” specified Gray. “They saw me playing somewhere and asked me to make one of their sessions. Sometimes I’d make a gig with them if I could. Me, Spann and Little Johnnie Jones could work seven nights a week if we wanted to. Chicago was a piano players town back in the 1950s.”
In 1956, Gray only cut one session with Billy Boy Arnold at Vey Jay, but it marked the beginning of a 12 year tenure with Howlin’ Wolf.
“Wolf offered me more money than Walter so I went with him. He was quite strict but we got along okay. He had a .38, and I had a .38. You had to have one back then because we played in some pretty rough joints. Wolf was about business. Walter never was. Wolf bought the band uniforms—I had six different uniforms. Some musicians didn’t like Wolf telling them what to do and what to wear, but if it was your name out there, would you want a band behind you with their asses hanging out? He was professional and taught me a lot.
“Wolf was a good showman. He would crawl around on his hands and knees and drive the audience crazy. Hubert (Sumlin) was in the band when I joined. We played all over the south and west sides but we were the house band at Sylvio’s. When Wolf went on the road he took Hubert and left me to front the band because I could sing and hold a crowd.”
Gray played on scores of Wolf’s recordings and recalled they were arduous, often taking multiple takes, but occasionally quite humorous.
“Once he set his mind to doing something one way, it was had to get him to change,” said Gray. “We were in the studio cutting one of Willie Dixon’s songs, “Taildragger.” Wolf just couldn’t get the lyrics right. He kept singing, “I’m a tail dragger, I swipe out my tracks.” That just drove Leonard Chess crazy. He kept stopping us and yelling, ‘Damn Wolf. You don’t swipe out your tracks, you wipe out your tracks!’ It took over a dozen takes before Wolf got it right.”
Gray continued to pile up the studio credits, contributing brilliant piano backing on G. L. Crockett’s, “Look Out Mabel,” and Harold Burrage’s, “She Knocks Me Out.” In 1959, Gray brought a new sound to ensemble Chicago blues—at least in clubs—the electric piano.
“It was a Wurlitzer,” said Gray. “I played it through a Fender Bassman (amplifier). I got tired of playing torn up, out-of-tune pianos and playing around the bad notes. The worst was when we played clubs behind Muddy Waters. Spann destroyed pianos because he played so hard. He used to split the hammers on the piano some nights and they’d be all over the floor. I never recorded on the electric piano though because that wasn’t the sound the studios were looking for.”
In the early 1960s, most of Gray’s studio dates were in support of Howlin’ Wolf at Chess, although he took on an occasional outside session. In 1968, Wolf and Gray—two men with strong personalities parted forever.
“I had a few drinks one night and I was tired of Wolf’s petty bullshit,” said Gray. “I didn’t need the money, because I was getting a pension from the army. The day after I quit, I took the train back to Louisiana.”
After he got back to Louisiana, he picked up sporatic work plying music with Slim Harpo, Raful Neal, Silas Hogan and Tabby Thomas, but to make ends meet, Gray drove a bulldozer and worked as a roofer. In 1970, Lazy Lester took him to Crowley, Louisiana, where he recorded the spectacular single, “Lucky Lucky Man/You’re My Midnight Dream.” (This would make Gray the only musician to work under probably the three greatest blues record producers ever—Leonard Chess, Willie Dixon and J. D. Miller. The single alerted the world that Gray was still in the game. He was soon after recorded by Arhoolie and Blue Horizon, who put together Louisiana Blues anthologies. In the mid-1970s, Gray made the first of over 30 trips to Europe. In 1987, he made his first solo album, “They Call Me Little Henry,” which appeared on the German Blue Beat label. His first solo American album, “Lucky Man,” was released on Blind Pig in 1988. By then, Gray was a fixture on the American and European blues festival circuit, and a particular favorite at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.
Now in his mid-80s, Gray remains very active and is enjoying the release of a new CD, “Times Are Gettin’ Harder,” issued on the Lucky Cat label. If you’re interested in checking out a legend, or hearing some authentic blues, Henry Gray will be appearing at the Ogden Museum October 15, 2009.
I had just purchased six piping-hot, 8-inch rice-and-porkers at the Sausage Link on old U.S. 90 in Sulphur, Looziana, when I glanced down at the newspaper rack by the exit door and spied a surprisingly familiar sight in this almost-alien swampland. Had I drunk too much beer at the Kaw-Liga bar down the road, where I had eavesdropped on the locals debating whether an actual wildcat had killed old man Guidry’s horse? Or was I really seeing what I was seeing?
The cover of the freebie magazine on the rack featured the photo of a man gripping sticks from behind a drum kit, namely “Lightning Mitchell” of Lake Charles, with the headline reading: “He’s Been Jamming With the Legends for Over 60 Years. Now He’s Chilling With Us.” I shamefully did not recall having heard of Mitchell before, but the article informed me that he was the drummer on Phil Phillips’ immortal “Sea of Love” and Boozoo Chavis’ pioneering zydeco landmark, “Paper in My Shoe,” and had played with the likes of Katie Webster and Lil’ Alfred.
But what had made me do my surprised double take was the striking poster on the wall behind Lightning: “Mystic Knights of the Mau-Mau.” It was the Ponderosa Stomp poster for Year #2 (2003), with its roll call of legendary names like Billy “Boy” Arnold, Jody Williams, Henry Gray, and all those usual suspects. You had better bet your ducktails that Lightning Mitchell is a fan of the Ponderosa Stomp—and vice versa.
I was on my way to the VFW Hall in Starks, LA., near the Texas border, for a star-studded and certainly very Stomp-like bill: Warren Storm, Willie “Tee” Trahan, Tommy McLain, TK Hulin, and Charles Mann. The occasion for such an illustrious lineup was the Jack W. Johnson Memorial Dance. Jack had been a trumpet player for Louisiana Express, one of the go-to backing bands used by all the swamp-pop legends, such as those playing this show, as well as Lil’ Alfred, Johnnie Allan, and many others.
I had phoned the promoter a week before to reserve tickets and a table. My call all the way from New Orleans had no doubt jolted the late Jack Johnson’s brother, Don, who was producing the show in Jack’s memory. After all, it’s no hop, skip, and a jump from the Old Gumbo to the Sabine River. I was slightly worried that Don would view my citified status with suspicion, a la that famous scene from “Easy Rider,” when the xenophobic small-town guy in the diner notes disdainfully to his country compatriots: “Check the flag on that bike.”
But at the VFW Hall, after Warren Storm informed me that Don wanted to meet the guy who had come all the way from the Crescent to Calcasieu, my trepidation immediately dissipated. Don took one look at the tricked-out embroidered rooster ballcap on my head, smiled, and held up a hand to reveal a scar running at least 7 inches from his palm up his arm. “Steel-spurred rooster got me 20 years ago,” he revealed with a twinkle in his eye. Pumping his scarred right mitt, I knew then that Don and I were 100% simpatico.
And as the music started, we were immediately transported back to the late 1950s, when the U.S. dollar was as good as gold and swamp pop was king. The VFW Hall was jammed with booted, cowboy-hatted, and Hawaiian-shirted dudes and their dates, who were dressed to the nines and smelling like perfume factories, drowning out the faint industrial reek of nearby Sulphur and Lake Charles. This was the hottest ticket in town. The only minor disappointment of the night was that our reserved seating at a long row of tables was so packed with Cajun and Texan flesh that we opted to stand for most of the night just offstage near the merchandise table, around which the headliners were seated like so many Cabinet secretaries or heads of the five New York famiglias. So though we mostly stood, we were near enough to touch the hems of their godlike garments.
Tommy McLain
And moving away from the hoi polloi’s tables might have been a lifesaving strategy. With so many rabid dancers coming and going as the band shifted gears in rapid-fire succession from belly-rubbers to jitterbuggers, sitting in those crowded aisles might have been deadlier than a Who arena show marred by trampling casualties. So dense was the stampede back and forth from tables to dancefloor that I could almost hear the mounted Cajun cowboy’s cry of “Hippy Ti Yo!” riding herd on the rug-cutters running furiously pell-mell to relive their youths with every frenzied dance step.
Charles Mann and Warren Storm
Anyone familiar with the Ponderosa Stomp needs no introduction to the legends who graced the stage at the Starks VFW that night. Tommy McLain, the benevolent leprechaun-like John the Baptist figure in a frosty-white beard, still singing with the voice of an angel after all these years. Charles “Red Red Wine” Mann, emoting intensely on-stage like a cross between Jerry Lee’s preacher cousin Jimmy Swaggart and soul master Otis Redding. Willie “Tee”, a gentle bear of man with a Satchmo-like gravelly voice and a growling sax. TK Hulin, whose uncannily youthful rock-star looks and authoritative Tom Jones aura fuel his nonstop dynamic stage presence as he belts out the unforgettable chorus to “Alligator Bayou”: “I’m a good-time, hard-lovin’ Cajun man.” Truer words were never spoken. And then, certainly the Caucasian equivalent of Lazy Lester in the Ponderosa Stomp pantheon of music giants: Warren Storm, who can dub himself “The Godfather of Swamp Pop Music” without anyone batting an eye, so deep is the stentorian soulfulness of his bayou wail and pleading, tremelo-like vocal quaver. At 70-something, we can forgive him for not pounding the skins that night. We also don’t bat an eye at the notion of driving practically to the Sabine River Turnaround to see this atomic bomb from Abbeville delivering the goods one more time.
TK Hulin
And let’s not forget the backing band, Cypress, who brought .44 Magnum musical firepower to befit the occasion—and each member a card-carrying coonass to boot. Many touring swamp-pop legends find themselves stuck with mediocre pickup bands playing without benefit of rehearsal. Not Cypress. Honing their chops as Storm and Tee’s regular outfit on at least eight gigs a month, these minstrels are well-versed with the stars’ material as well as each other. Composed of two relatively youngish bucks on bass and drums (Scott Broussard and Kyle Dugas) and two more seasoned veterans on keyboard and guitar (Karl Bordelon and Tommy Richard), the Cypress band galloped along like a frisky quarterhorse at a Cajun bush track—a sure bet at any big race. Bordelon even picked up the trumpet on occasion to sound a few Gabriel’s notes, no doubt as the night’s honoree, Jack Johnson, smiled down from Swamp Pop Heaven.
Honoree Jack Johnson's portrait held by his survivors
As the evening wore down, it got to be crying time again as we paused to reflect on Jack Johnson. Over muffled tears and blinding flashbulbs, we took pictures of Jack’s survivors posing with a framed portrait of the trumpeter that had been signed by all the swamp-pop legends on the bill. Through whiskied breath I tried to coax some smiles out of the siblings, reminding them that this was Jack’s party and he would want the occasion to be a festive one. They did their best to comply.
Warren Storm reads raffle numbers with promoter Don Johnson's wife
And though the show was almost over, Warren Storm had one more special performance to give: He spent a good 20 minutes reading off the winning numbers for the parade-of-prizes raffle tickets that had been sold. At my request, he even read off a few numbers in his native French tongue. This is a musician who—if there were any justice in this stinking world—will be enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, along with the rest of his swamp-popping peers, and there he was reading off the winning digits at the Starks VFW before launching into his final set and driving back to Lafayette in the wee hours. That’s the utter epitome of class and showmanship.
What a scintillatingly brilliant night of music it had been, yet there was still one more little divine pot of gold waiting at the end of this rainbow: the Lucky Longhorn motel in Vinton, an arm of the Texas Longhorn Club complex. Part truck stop, part motel, part restaurant, part casino, part laundromat, this cozy little oasis just off I-10 can meet every weary swamp-pop fan’s traveling needs. And with your choice of shower or Jacuzzi, you’ll find more than a little lucky respite there as you lay down to sleep and dream those “Sweet Dreams” of your next magical musical mystery tour. Talk about a happy ending. Yeah you right, baby.
Metairie is a place often disparaged by those “not from here.” It is especially disparaged by those not from here who seek to cloak themselves and where they came from in all things New Orleans. By disparaging our hinterlands, they strive to make themselves all the more genuinely New Orleans. Ironically, these self-appointed New Orleans experts miss the “tout ensemble” for the trees (or maybe the lack thereof). They fail to discern that there is often more New Orleans buried amid the neon-and-concrete trappings of seemingly bland suburbia than in the city itself these days. Especially musically.
Mo’s Chalet is just such an under-the-radar den of down-home blues. Impresario Morell “Mo” Crane is an important patron of local music, particularly the classic styles such as jazz, rhythm and blues, and swamp pop. Mo brought in his old friend, sax titan Sam Butera, years before the New Orleans JazzFest ever sat up and took notice that the supercharged turbine behind Louie Prima was still jumping, jiving, and wailing like never before, well into his 70s.
But Mo doesn’t just hire the well-known entertainers. Super-talented rank-and-file artists who somehow got lost in the shuffle but are still cranking it out in the musical trenches can find a welcome stage at Mo’s Chalet. Names such as Bobby Lonero, Earl Stanley, Skip Easterling, Eddie Powers, Art SirVan, Allen Collay, Al McCrossen, and Billy Bell. These are just the sort of hidden gems that the Ponderosa Stomp strives to spotlight. And such a roster fits in with Mo’s motto: “GIVE THE PEOPLE WHAT THEY WANT.”
And “the people,” in Mo’s case, fit a certain demographic. They are either members of “the Greatest Generation” or hail from the immediately younger age groups. These are the people who grew up in a still-vibrant New Orleans, attended its grammar and high schools, and bore witness to not only the jazz revival of the late 1940s and early ’50s, but also the birth of rock ‘n’ roll. These are the people who remember Butera and Prima blazing away on Bourbon Street and at the Beverly Club. These are the people who saw Pete Fountain and Al “Jumbo” Hirt trading lightning-bolt licks at Lenfant’s on the lakefront. These are the people who when they hear the name “Dukes of Dixieland” immediately think “Assunto brothers”—you know, those nice neighborhood Italian boys from around the French Market who just happen to have a red-hot family band. These are the people who grew up buying Fats Domino 45s and swaying to Jerry Raines’ “Our Teenage Love” at the CYO dances. They remember serving detention-hall stints with Roland “Stone” LeBlanc at Warren Easton High, or eating cheeseburgers next to a teenage Frankie Ford at Da Wabbit in Gretna after a sock hop at the McDonoghville VFW. These are New Orleans’ salt of the earth, and those who still make it out to Mo’s Chalet are the silver-fox survivors. They’re still boogieing down and drinking up well into their 60s, 70s, and 80s.
One recent Sunday I stopped in to hear vocalist Duke Duplantis front his RBT combo. What a gentleman Duke is—a total man’s man, whose specialty is singing Sinatra and other Rat Pack standards with the perfect measure of gravitas and testosterone. I don’t know who I’d be more afraid to piss off backstage in Vegas in a fight over some mob bimbo: Duke himself, or Ole Blue Eyes backed up by a gang of sycophantic “associates.” Of course, Duke—after setting you straight—would probably suggest a round of 18 holes at the local golf course and even pick up the greens fees just to show you what a stand-up guy he is.
And serving as the smiling bandleader with just a hint of an Elvis sneer to his lip, Richie Ladner brings decades of professional experience to the table, having been a latter-day member of New Orleans’ legendary Jokers. Playing with an almost pornographic joy, he is both a stellar pianist and vocalist, and his baritony rendition of “Take Me Home, Country Roads” melded into a gospel medley still sends chills down my spine. When not amazing you with his melodiousness, Ladner will slay you with his hysterically ribald humor and impeccable comic timing.
A book could be written about saxophonist Johnny Pennino (http://www.johnnypennino.com), but luckily for the local music scene, his story is not yet over. Music aficionadoes have heard of the legendary Papa Joe’s nightclub on Bourbon Street, whose 1960s-era band featured luminaries such as Freddy Fender, Joe Barry, and Skip Easterling. Though not as well-known, Pennino made his musical bones at Papa Joe’s and was in fact that band’s longest-serving member. Fender once said of Pennino: “He blows a tenor sax in such a sweet, pleasant and unforgettable way. Nobody else can come up with anything so unique. Johnny’s sound is romantic. It is magical.” So magical that when Duke Ellington was brought to hear the young Italian stallion play on Bourbon Street in the 1960s, the Duke offered Pennino a job, asking: “Do you read music, son?”
But New Orleans’ pull was too strong on Pennino, and he stayed put, carrying the torches of Jumbo and Butera and continuing to play with an otherworldly fire-and-brimstone ferocity, yet with utter lyricism and beauty on tour-de-force power ballads such as “Europa.” Pennino’s voice on saxophone is completely unique, but then so is his shamefully undershowcased singing. His vocal rendition of Dean Martin’s “Return to Me” is incredibly sensuous, and his Elvis interpretations must have the King himself sitting up in his crypt and taking notice. But Pennino ultimately is a horn player who makes anyone’s band sound better, as evidenced by swamp-pop legend Johnnie Allan turning to me one night at a West Bank hideaway and asking in bewilderment: “WHO IS THAT GUY?” The Cajun icon was simply blown away by Pennino, who had just accompanied Allan on his own set—walking on totally unrehearsed and never having before met.
Injecting some intangible Mo-jo to the mix was John Dauenhauer on baritone sax, who is always a welcome sight wielding that bazooka-like piece of brass, which was key to the classic 1950s riffing ensemble horn sound, but which is rarely employed today—and sadly so. The titanic instrument’s notes are almost imperceptibly heard at first—hitting your gut and injecting a fat-bottomed groove to the wailing sound of the tenor above it. Thanks to Our Lady of Prompt Succor for the presence of John Dauenhauer on bari sax. He’s like a flambeaux carrier in a Mardi Gras parade: Just when you thought the tradition had died out, there he is with his big flame-throwing rig, bringing it all back home again.
Drummer Wally Rabalais is another unsung local veteran, having set a splendidly percussive tone with countless bands and frontmen like Bobby Lonero; Al Dressel and the Fugowees; and Midnight Streetcar. Rabalais is a rock-solid timekeeper but also surprises audiences with his own singing voice. For one second at Mo’s I thought Clarence “Frogman” Henry was in the house, exclaiming out of nowhere that he sang like a frog and had no home. Turns out it was Rabalais doing his dead-on Frogman impression from behind the drum kit. The legendary Frogman was hopefully enjoying some well-deserved relaxation on his front porch in Algiers, content to let his disciples do the singing.
The band entertained that Sunday with every genre of music, from cocktail-lounge warhorses to country two-steps, from Smiley Lewis’ “Someday” to Lloyd Price’s “Stagger Lee,” from Roland Stone’s “Just a Moment” to the classic 1950s doo-wop “We Belong Together.” And in true New Orleans fashion, a second-line erupted. Not a stomping parade of gator-popping buck-jumpers, but a procession of guest singers who stepped up to add their own unique spices to the mix. Owner Mo Crane’s brother Rene—a kindly venerable figure with billowy snow-white hair and a blood-red guayabera shirt—took a turn at a couple of chestnuts, and then Mo himself—a man whose infectious lust for life is positively Viagra-like—stepped up to the microphone, shucking and jiving to Al Jolson and a totally romping version of “Gentle On My Mind.”
Mo’s Chalet: A musical oasis in Metairie that really delivers on its promise to “give the people what they want.”
Fifty-four years ago today, per Bumps Blackwell’s recommendation, Little Richard Penniman (seen above with Jet Harris, Gene Vincent and Sam Cooke) joined forces with Fats Domino’s band — which included the late Earl Palmer, drummer extraordinaire who performed at the 1st annual Ponderosa Stomp and served as Master of Ceremonies for Stomp #4 — at Cosimo Matassa’s J&M Recording Studio.
Their collective goal was to lay down tracks for Art Rupe’s Specialty label. As legend has it, nothing much happened, though, until the group broke for lunch. Then, in true recording studio mythology (see Elvis’ inaugural Sun session, or the story behind Isaac Hayes and David Porter’s “Hold On, I’m Comin’”), Little Richard sat down at the piano and began banging out a high voltage tune that he’d woodshedded in gay bars:
“Tutti Frutti, good booty
If it don’t fit, don’t force it
You can grease it, make it easy.”
Blackwell called in Dorothy LaBostrie to clean up the lyrics, and, after rolling tape for a record 15 minutes, one of the most iconic songs ever recorded in Orleans Parish was complete.
Mac Rebennack just happened to be standing outside J&M when the magic happened — and I got to quiz him about it 50 years later, for an article published in MOJO magazine:
“I was always hanging out there during Specialty sessions, trying to sell Art Rupe some songs. I remember telling my older sister, ‘This guy Little Richard is doing a session at the studio,’ and she replied, ‘Oh, I used to see him at Panama City.’ So Richard was already doing his thing as a solo act. He came out of those revues, where he had to really know his shit. Some people say he bummed his act from Esquerita, but to me, Eskew was more gospel sounding, and Richard was straight up hip. Sure, he sang kinda gospel but he played that ratty shit on the piano, with Earl Palmer following on the cymbals. His style was a revelation, a really good sound that could rock the house without fail.
Richard was a totally original cat – everything about him was off the hook. He was a little flamboyant, sure, but it went with that turf. Seeing him and Eskew hanging out wearing men’s suits, topped off with lipstick, that high hair, and women’s shades, would catch people off guard – they’d give them the once over two or three times, even though in New Orleans, we were used to the drag queen revues and traditions like that.
This is what made Richard special: As Fats Domino told me, ‘I couldn’t tell you what’s the difference between rock and roll and R&B.’ But Richard changed something in the New Orleans groove. Instead of a shuffle, he could play that eighth note thing on the piano, which set him apart from the rest of us. He used it from that first record on, and a lot of other people started using that shit. They still use it in rock and roll today.”
As Cosimo explained to writer Todd Mouton in the pages of Offbeat a while back, “If you transmit an emotion to the listener, it’s a good record. It’s gonna be a successful record. Now, having said that, how you measure it, I don’t know. How you predict it, I have not a clue. Because it happens, and everybody’s aware of it, you know, it’s fundamental. And yet totally evasive.”
Rebennack: “Back then, though, we didn’t really appreciate it. Everybody in New Orleans had so much to do, so many sessions to play on, that Tutti Frutti was just a little chunk of their lives. They didn’t have time to think much about it. I remember someone asking Red Tyler and Earl Palmer, ‘What do you remember about playing on it?’ and they both said, without batting an eye, ‘Very little.’”
Of course, like any million-selling single, there’s been an argument over the songwriting credits ever since.
LaBostrie, from Jeff Hannusch’s I Hear You Knocking: The Sound of New Orleans Rhythm and Blues:
“Little Richard didn’t write none ‘Tutti Fruitti.’ I’ll tell you exactly how I came to write that. I used to live on Galvez Street and my girlfriend and I liked to go down to the drug store and buy ice cream. One day we went in and saw this new flavor, Tutti Fruitti. Right away I thought, ‘Boy, that’s a great idea for a song.’ So I kept it in the back of my mind until I got to the studio that day. I also wrote the flip side of ‘Tutti Fruitti,’ ‘I’m Just a Lonely Guy,’ and a spiritual, ‘Blessed Mother,’ all in the same day.”
Blackwell, quoted in Charles White’s biography of Little Richard:
“I Knew that the lyrics were too lewd and suggestive to record. It would never have got played on air. So I got hold of Dorothy La Bostrie, who had come over to see how the recording of her song [I'm Just A Lonely Guy?] was going. I brought her to the Dew Drop. I said to her: ‘Look. You come and write some lyrics to this, ’cause I can’t use the lyrics Richard’s got.’ Richard turned to face the wall and sang the song two ot three times and Dorothy listened. Break time was over, and we went back to the studio to finish the session, leaving Dorothy to write the words. Fifteen minutes before the session was to end, the chick comes in and puts these little trite lyrics in front of me.”
And Penniman himself, again from White’s book:
“I’d been singing ‘Tutti Frutti’ for years, but it never struck me as a song you’d record. I didn’t go to New Orleans to record no ‘Tutti Frutti.’ Sure, it used to crack the crowds up when I sang it in the clubs, with those risqué lyrics. But I never thought it would be a hit, even with the lyrics cleaned up.”
I’ll let Mac close it out:
“Of course, the idea for Tutti Frutti was probably already floating around New Orleans. I bet Richard heard something like it from Eddie Bo. Considering who actually wrote this sucker – Dorothy LaBostrie, who wrote Johnny Adams’ and Irma Thomas’ first hit records – I’m sure the song came straight up out of the dozens. ‘A gal named Sue/She knows just what to do’ – that shit was nasty! Some New Orleans songs, like Tee-Nah-Nah, are Creole. You know, your tee-nah-nah is your ass cheeks, and your tee-nah-noo is your asshole. But Tutti Frutti isn’t Creole, and I don’t think it went with the ice cream flavor. You know what a fruit is, right? I think it had more to do with that shit. But did you ever hear Pat fucking Boone singing that crap? I don’t know if he got it and fucked it up, or if he didn’t get it, and fucked it up. Either way, it was pretty fucked up, but we didn’t pay no attention to that crap!”
The scene: An historic crossroads in Chalmette, where St. Bernard Highway meets Paris Road, under the unearthly, Mordor-like glow of the Chalmette Refinery, in a parish where so many ghosts still tiptoe on the fringes of our consciousness: French land barons. West African slaves. Canary Island fishermen. Creole dandies. Kaintuck riflemen. Bloodied British invaders. Sicilian truck farmers. Mobbed-up political bosses. At this crossroads sits a roadhouse that has operated under numerous names, in myriad incarnations: now called Old Brad’s Nite Life. It was there last Sunday evening that I took an unforgettable musical ride on a runaway R&B freight train: the Midnight Streetcar.
Cullen Landry
Led by an original Joker, bassist Cullen Landry, the Midnight Streetcar is firing on all cylinders in its mission to keep classic New Orleans rock and roll alive and kicking. This night featured a double-barreled vocal attack: St. Bernard native son Phat 2′sDay, a jump-blues specialist whose booming bellow shines on Big Joe Turner and Smiley Lewis shouters; and then Laurin Munsch, possibly the closest thing we have left to the “Tan Canary,” Mr. Johnny Adams.
Munsch sings in a rich tenor that suddenly and effortlessly swoops and flutters heavenward into a spine-tingling upper register that breaks the sound barrier to nail his versions of Tan Canary classics such as “I Won’t Cry” and “Reconsider Me.” Sonic celestial orgasm, and then diving back down to the terra firma of his sweet tenor voice. It is simply criminal that a vocal talent like Munsch’s is not playing the Ritz-Carlton or the Blue Room. And Munsch is a seasoned showman, wandering amid the packed dancefloor and tables with a cordless microphone and coaxing out sing-alongs. But then, this man is a pure professional, having honed his natural talent over many years in mainstay Metairie nightclubs like Chesterfield’s and Critic’s Choice.
Al Farrel
And as if that weren’t enough, the band featured a third big-time vocalist in the form of its electric pianist, Al Farrell. A star in his own right, this man can play and sing Ray Charles in his sleep, delighting the audience with his muscular tenor on “What I’d Say” and “Georgia.” A true towering talent. James Booker is dead, Huey Smith is dormant, but New Orleans has not yet run out of piano professors while Al Farrell continues to tinkle the ivories.
And throughout this musical journey stood the Streetcar conductor, the wiry visionary Cullen Landry, silently plucking away at his standup bass, his silver hair and ruddy face shrouded in shadow but clearly transported to another realm by the music of his youth as he anchored down the groove of his musical henchmen.
The band was fleshed out by other solid, standout players such as Larry Simpson on saxophone, Willie Panker on drums, and Nat Montalbano on guitar. Who else would you want to have cranking out all the New Orleans classics? And it was a magical night filled with a hit parade of New Orleans’ rich musical tapestry of the 1950s and ’60s.
Later that evening, I thought back to the classic Preservation Hall band lineups of the 1960s and ’70s. The musicians in those bands—like clarinetist George Lewis, trombonist Jim Robinson, and trumpeter Percy Humphrey—were children playing at the feet of the jazz originators (Bolden, Armstrong, Morton, Bechet) when they created that earth-shaking sound in the early 1900s. And we know that band today as the real deal. Likewise, Cullen Landry and his cohorts were once pimply teenagers playing at the feet of the rock originators—the heroes of their youth like Guitar Slim, Fats Domino, and Lloyd Price—at the CYO dances at St. Anthony’s, St. Dominic, and Germania Hall. Today we know Midnight Streetcar as the real deal in New Orleans R&B. Go see them.
On Saturday night, exactly 54 years after he headlined the St. Francis County Fair in Forrest City, Arkansas, alongside Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Floyd Cramer, Sun rockabilly Eddie Bond took the stage at the Center for Southern Folklore‘s Memphis Music & Heritage Festival.
At the fifth annual Ponderosa Stomp, Bond was backed by Deke Dickerson and the Eccofonics, along with special guest guitarist (and one-time Bond protege) Travis Wammack. Saturday, he played with a group of Middleton, Tennessee country musicians, including an unknown hotshot guitarist disguised in a Hawaiian shirt and glasses.
Bond, a showman responsible for the phenomenal 1956 b-side “Rockin’ Daddy” and the 1973 pop culture hit “The Ballad of Buford Pusser” who cranked out the hits even as he pulled double-duty hosting several popular Memphis TV shows, took the stage inside the Center’s Folklore Hall wearing his trademark yellow blazer and played “Rockin’ Daddy” — twice!
Go here to read my Memphis Flyer feature about the changing face of the Memphis Music & Heritage Festival, which lost two perennial performers, Stomp alum Billy Lee Riley and famed producer Jim Dickinson, in recent weeks.
From the article:
When I caught up with Center for Southern Folklore director Judy Peiser a week before festival time, she had a heavy heart. Upon pausing to contemplate the gaping holes caused by the absence of the ever-dependable Riley and Dickinson, she said:
“Things are definitely mutating. It’s gotten so hard to do a festival every year because of the people who aren’t there anymore, people who had a major effect on what we do. I grew up listening to the music I started presenting, and now I’m presenting music that’s one generation removed. People like Jim and Billy Lee weren’t playing off records — they were playing off life.”
Peiser sighed, recalling moments she spent with Dickinson, co-producing bluesman Mose Vinson’s solo CD Piano Man. She remembered the blues sets that Riley often delivered, peppered with his classic Sun rockabilly hits such as “Flying Saucer Rock and Roll” and “Red Hot.” She sounded dismayed at the thought of anyone other than Thomas, the minstrel performer turned Stax Records mainstay — billed as “the World’s Oldest Teenager,” he died in 2001, when he was 84 years old — performing “The Funky Chicken.”
“Life goes on,” Peiser finally said. “Sure, there was Michelangelo, but there were also a lot of people after him.”
In a music industry where an artist’s life expectancy is often measured by their fleeting time in the spotlight, Ronnie Spector’s influence truly precedes her: it’s evident and immediate from the second that unforgettable drum intro to the Ronettes’ 1963 smash “Be My Baby” kicks in, and she hasn’t even started singing yet. No matter who you are, what you’ve heard before or what you will hear in the future, there’s little that can compare to hearing “Be My Baby” for the first—or even the millionth—time. Ask artists as varied as the Beatles, Bruce Springsteen, the New York Dolls, the Ramones or even Billy Joel, whose “Say Goodbye To Hollywood” was written for her.
But don’t just stop there, look to Beach Boy Brian Wilson, who was so taken with “Be My Baby” that he penned the nearly-as-great “Don’t Worry Baby” in response to it. Even Madonna once famously stated, “I want to look the way Ronnie Spector sounds.”
Spector didn’t just shift the musical landscape, she shook it up with earthquake intensity, defining careers right and left with “Be My Baby,” “The Best Part of Breaking Up,” “Baby I Love You,” “He Did It” and unforgettable renditions of Christmas classics like “Frosty The Snowman.”
To quote the lady’s website, because we couldn’t say it better ourselves: “Only a few artists in history have been capable of defining an entire era in pop music. Ronnie Spector is one of those artists: the embodiment of the heart, soul and passion of female rock ‘n’ roll in the 1960s. And to this day, no one has ever surpassed Ronnie’s powerful trademark vocals, her gutsy attitude, or her innocent but knowing sexuality.”
The truth, plain and simple. From her slit skirts to her sensual voice, there’s never been anything ordinary about her. Born Veronica Bennett to a white father and half-Cherokee half-black mother, Spector grew up in Spanish Harlem during the heart of the doo-wop era. Her earliest influence and lifelong idol, Frankie Lyman, lived just blocks away, and Spector would often go out of her way to pass his house on 165th Street. Cutting her teeth at the Apollo Theater’s infamous amateur nights, she formed the Ronettes with sister Estelle and cousin Nedra while still in her teens. After a stint at the Peppermint Lounge, they were soon performing at DJ Murray the K’s notorious Brooklyn Fox rock ‘n’ roll package shows.
Signed to the Colpix label, their first records included standouts like the aforementioned “He Did It” and “You Bet I Would,” written by Jackie DeShannon and Carole King respectively. In 1963 the Ronettes hooked up with The Tycoon of Teen himself, Phil Spector, resulting in the worldwide smash “Be My Baby,” followed by a tour of England with the Rolling Stones and Yardbirds as opening acts. The next few years found them turning in a hysteria-inducing performance on the Tami TNT Show and taking front and center on the legendary Phil Spector’s Christmas Album.
In 1966 the Beatles personally requested the Ronettes to open for them on their final tour, then signed Ronnie to their Apple imprint in 1970 for the George Harrison-penned single “Try Some, Buy Some,” where she was backed by two-thirds of the Fab Four.
Inducted into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall Of Fame, Ronnie has remained a rocker to the very core, often commenting on the lack of passion in modern music. Her latest release, the tellingly titled (and excellent) Last Of The Rock Stars, features a smattering of friends and fans who range from veterans Keith Richards and Patti Smith to young Cincinnati garage rockers the Greenhornes. Never forgetting where she came from, it contains a great version of the tin-pan alley ballad-cum-R&B hit made famous by Frankie Lyman, “Out In The Cold Again.”
More videos:
Ronnie Spector performing “I Wonder” at the 7th annual Ponderosa Stomp.
Ronnie Spector performing “Baby I Love You” at the 7th annual Ponderosa Stomp.
Growing up in Houston, Texas, Archie Bell started singing in church before cutting his teeth in a junior high school vocal group called Little Pop and the Fireballs. By the time he’d made it to high school, he’d formed the Drells, who, though Texans through and through, specialized in a breezy thread of Chicago-style soul. Their unique approach won them many a talent contest and brought them to the attention of local disc jockey and Ovide Records head honcho Skippy Lee Frazier. Their first outing for Frazier, 1966’s “She’s My Woman” became a local hit but the next year Bell was drafted. Before heading off, he and the Drells managed to lay down a few tunes in the company of Texas State University’s ace instrumental soul squad the T.S.U. Tornadoes. One of the songs was a loose, infectious number called “Tighten Up,” which was subsequently released and became a hit, first in Houston and then all over the country.
It crested at number one on both the pop and R&B charts while Drell was recovering from wounds in Vietnam. Learning of his windfall, he began traveling back to the U.S. to record while on leave, and eventually lit out for a national tour with the Drells. It was after a show in New Jersey that he met Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff, Philadelphia’s leading songwriting and production team. The partnership wound up being a fruitful one, scoring hits such as “I Can’t Stop Dancng,” “Do The Choo-Choo” and the most excellent, “(There’s Gonna Be A) Showdown,” which was later re-invented to perfection by the New York Dolls.
Whoa, WFMU’s Debbie D and company have gone bonkers over at the Rock ‘n’ Soul Ichiban site. 
While 
The cover of the freebie magazine on the rack featured the photo of a man gripping sticks from behind a drum kit, namely “Lightning Mitchell” of Lake Charles, with the headline reading: “He’s Been Jamming With the Legends for Over 60 Years. Now He’s Chilling With Us.” I shamefully did not recall having heard of Mitchell before, but the article informed me that he was the drummer on 
Metairie is a place often disparaged by those “not from here.” It is especially disparaged by those not from here who seek to cloak themselves and where they came from in all things New Orleans. By disparaging our hinterlands, they strive to make themselves all the more genuinely New Orleans. Ironically, these self-appointed New Orleans experts miss the “tout ensemble” for the trees (or maybe the lack thereof). They fail to discern that there is often more New Orleans buried amid the neon-and-concrete trappings of seemingly bland suburbia than in the city itself these days. Especially musically.
A book could be written about saxophonist Johnny Pennino (http://www.johnnypennino.com), but luckily for the local music scene, his story is not yet over. Music aficionadoes have heard of the legendary Papa Joe’s nightclub on Bourbon Street, whose 1960s-era band featured luminaries such as Freddy Fender, Joe Barry, and Skip Easterling. Though not as well-known, Pennino made his musical bones at Papa Joe’s and was in fact that band’s longest-serving member. Fender once said of Pennino: “He blows a tenor sax in such a sweet, pleasant and unforgettable way. Nobody else can come up with anything so unique. Johnny’s sound is romantic. It is magical.” So magical that when Duke Ellington was brought to hear the young Italian stallion play on Bourbon Street in the 1960s, the Duke offered Pennino a job, asking: “Do you read music, son?” 
Mac Rebennack just happened to be standing outside J&M when the magic happened — and I got to quiz him about it 50 years later, for an article published in MOJO magazine: 
The scene: An historic crossroads in Chalmette, where St. Bernard Highway meets Paris Road, under the unearthly, Mordor-like glow of the Chalmette Refinery, in a parish where so many ghosts still tiptoe on the fringes of our consciousness: French land barons. West African slaves. Canary Island fishermen. Creole dandies. Kaintuck riflemen. Bloodied British invaders. Sicilian truck farmers. Mobbed-up political bosses. At this crossroads sits a roadhouse that has operated under numerous names, in myriad incarnations: now called Old Brad’s Nite Life. It was there last Sunday evening that I took an unforgettable musical ride on a runaway R&B freight train: the Midnight Streetcar.
On Saturday night, exactly 54 years after he headlined the St. Francis County Fair in Forrest City, Arkansas, alongside Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Floyd Cramer, Sun rockabilly 
Forty-six years ago today, the Ronettes charted with “Be My Baby,” dubbed by Brian Wilson as “the most perfect pop record of all time.” 
