Earl Stanley is most noted today for his role in creating the 1965 proto-funk garage classic “Pass the Hatchet,” which he recorded with his band under the name Roger and the Gypsies. A local smash, that song went on to make waves again decades later in the soundtrack of Robert Rodriguez’s “Desperado” gangster film. However, this under-the-radar New Orleans treasure has been in the music game since the 1950s. As Michael Hurtt notes in an Offbeat music profile:
By the time he cut “Gypsy Woman” in 1964, Stanley was no stranger to the recording studio, having waxed hundreds of discs with the Loafers and the Skyliners that serve as a connect-the-dots treasure map to the greasiest of New Orleans rock ’n’ roll. With Mac Rebennack on guitar and piano, Leonard James on saxophone and Paul Staehle on drums, Stanley’s electric bass lines drove the records that — when you peel back the veneer of national hits — defined the soul of the city in the late ’50s and early ’60s, from Morgus and the Ghouls’ “Morgus The Magnificent” and Roland Stone’s “Just A Moment” to Bobby Lonero’s “Little Bit” and Jimmy Donley’s “Think It Over.”
Today’s Song of the Day features Eddie Powers singing a Stanley-penned tuned called “A Million Tears Ago.” A member of the long-running West Bank band the Nobles, Powers also teamed up with Stanley on the tune that would make him a local sensation: “Gypsy Woman.” Stanley told Hurtt: ‘Gypsy Woman,’ I was playing organ and I didn’t know how to play it; I was just learning. That’s why it’s so simple, because I only knew one or two things. Maybe that’s for the best. If I’d have been real good and cluttered it all up with junk, it wouldn’t sound the same.”
Stanley also played at Papa Joe’s Bourbon Street nightclub in the legendary house band that at one time or another featured Skip Easterling, Freddy Fender, Joe Barry, and saxophonist Johnny Pennino, among others.
Today you can catch Earl Stanley and Eddie Powers playing every Wednesday at Mo’s Chalet in Metairie, usually accompanied by Pennino and other sit-in musicians. Stanley also plays bass with the Yat Pack at The Max bar in Metairie most Sundays and on their other gigs. And don’t miss Earl at this year’s Ponderosa Stomp. Click here for the full lineup as well as ticket and hotel information.
How did Knoxville singer Clifford Curry go from Smoky Mountain soul man to a shaman of “the shag,” revered by the Carolina Beach music scene? The credit goes to today’s “Song of the Day”: his pulsating 1967 Elf Records tour de force, “She Shot a Hole in My Soul,” which rose to #45 on the R&B charts and #95 in pop. Don’t miss your chance to do the shag with Curry at this year’s Ponderosa Stomp.
But in the meantime, compare and contrast with Curry’s version these two other takes on “She’s Got a Hole in My Soul,” both done by Ponderosa Stomp favorites and full- or part-time Louisiana legends, now both up in Soul Heaven: John Fred of “Judy in Disguise” fame and the Box Tops featuring Alex Chilton.
Mac Rebennack conceived of the “Dr. John” persona circa 1967 with the idea that his West Bank runnin’ pardner Ronnie Barron from Algiers Point would play the role of a tripped-out hoodoo man. However, Barron’s contract with RCA prohibited him from taking on the role, so Rebennack eventually morphed into Dr. John.
Born Ronald Raymond Barrosse in 1943, Barron worked with Rebennack during his early days as an A&R man for Specialty and Ace records in the late 1950s and early ’60s. Rebennack produced Barron’s first single, “Bad Neighborhood,” which was credited to Ronnie and the Delinquents. The pair later recorded “Talk That Talk” under the name “Drits and Dravey” for Harold Battiste‘s AFO label. Barron also served some time in a group called the Prime Ministers, featuring fellow New Orleanians Freddie Staehle (drums), Bobby Lonero (guitar), Eddie Zip (bass), Jerry Jumonville (tenor sax), and Wayne DeVilliere (organ).
After moving to California and declining the Dr. John role, Barron worked for Louie Prima for several years and concocted his own mystical stage persona, “Reverend Ether,” recording an album by that name for Decca.
By the 1970s, Barron had moved to Woodstock, N.Y., where he worked again with Rebennack as well as fellow Louisiana expatriate Bobby Charles, joining harmonica wizard Paul Butterfield’s Better Days group. This group cut a couple of standout albums – “Better Days” and “It All Comes Back” – featuring Charles and Barron compositions like “Small Town Talk” and “Louisiana Flood,” as well as great vocal performances from Barron. Besides doing some acting, Barron worked with BB King, Ry Cooder, John Lee Hooker, Big Joe Turner, Canned Heat, and Tom Waits. He died in 1997 of heart-related ailments.
As lagniappe, the video below is from Tom Waits’ “Heart Attack and Vine” album, which features Barron on piano and the late, great drummer “Big” Johnny Thomassie from the West Bank. Barron and Thomassie fuel this savage, swaggering exercise in total New Orleans junko blues, “Mr. Siegal.” Waits of course has worked with a range of other New Orleans sidemen, including Earl Palmer and Plas Johnson.
It’s a party this Saturday, thrown by the Ponderosa Stomp in partnership with Lincoln Center Out of Doors: “She’s Got the Power!”, a girl-group extravaganza featuring Ronnie Spector, LaLa Brooks, and – yes – Lesley Gore of “It’s My Party” fame, not too mention numerous other chanteuses from the Swinging Sixties: Arlene Smith (former lead singer of The Chantels), Baby Washington, Barbara Harris (of The Toys), Beverly Warren, Brenda Reid and Lillian Walker (of The Exciters), Louise Murray (of The Jaynetts), Margaret Ross (of The Cookies), Maxine Brown, Nanette Licori (of Reparata and the Delrons), and Peggy Santiglia Davison and Jiggs Sirico (of The Angels®).
The concert takes place Saturday in New York at the Damrosch Park Bandshell from 5 to 10 p.m., preceded by a “Girl Talk” symposium, at the David Rubenstein Atrium from noon to 4 p.m., complete with star appearances, expert analyses, and rare film footage.
For a full schedule of events, click here. Come get your girl-power groove on this Saturday with this unforgettably hardcore roster female rock legends!
Beverly Warren, Brenda Reid, and Lillian Walker of the Exciters will be among the girl-group legends appearing this Saturday, July 30, as part of “She’s Got the Power!,” a joint presentation by the Ponderosa Stomp and Lincoln Center Out of Doors. The concert in New York runs from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m., and is preceded by a symposium on these legendary girl groups and their influence on rock ‘n’ roll. For a full schedule, click here.
Also appearing will be Ronnie Spector of the Ronettes, LaLa Brooks (formerly of The Crystals) and Lesley Gore With Arlene Smith (former lead singer of The Chantels), Baby Washington, Barbara Harris (of The Toys), Louise Murray (of The Jaynetts), Margaret Ross (of The Cookies), Maxine Brown, Nanette Licori (of Reparata and the Delrons), and Peggy Santiglia Davison and Jiggs Sirico (of The Angels®). The artists will be backed by The Boyfriends,with Jeremy Chatzky as musical director. Don’t miss it!
The ashes of “Last Chance” singer Allen Collay made their long journey home to The Max lounge in Metry one Sunday afternoon in 2010, housed in a silver urn etched with a piano’s image, set onstage next to an unopened bottle of his beloved Heineken beer. Collay died – appropriately enough for a New Orleans R&B legend – on Fat Tuesday but – unlike kindred spirit Antoinette K-Doe a year earlier – 800 miles north in illness-imposed exile.
Allen Collay
Numerous former bandmates of the soulful St. Bernard Parish singer-pianist turned out to pay tribute at the Woodlawn Avenue lounge, site of Collay’s last musical stand before deteriorating health forced his move to the remote town of Mexico, Mo., in 2000. Joining in the festivities — which served as the jazz funeral Collay always wanted — were legions of admirers who could probably remember Collay from any number of contexts: his childhood Sunday-afternoon singing stints in the 1950s with Dixieland clarinetist Tony Almerico’s band at the Parisian Room; his 1959 smash tearjerker, “Last Chance”; his 1980s flirtation with stardom as a member of gold-record country-rock supergroup Atlanta; and his eventual return home to Louisiana after decades of exile, where he mesmerized nightclub crowds from the French Quarter (in spots such as Jaeger’s House of Seafood and the Al Hirt-owned Jelly Roll’s) to Metairie (at the original Chalet, later replaced by Mo’s Chalet after a fire).
It was at the Chalet in particular that Collay’s music had burned into the brain cells of many a local music lover. Hang out long enough at any Metairie watering hole catering to the older crowd and soon one gray-haired sentimentalist or another will start rhapsodizing about Collay’s sizzling sets at the Chalet’s late-night jam sessions. The line of brass players and other walk-ons would be stretched out the door waiting for a chance to join Collay and his R&B runnin’ pardners, like Roland “Stone” LeBlanc, Bobby Lonero, and Roy “Big Daddy” Wagner.
Joe Barry
A cousin of swamp-pop legend Joe “Barry” Barrios, Collay was born Allen Callais in 1943 and grew up “down the road” from New Orleans in Violet. Starting out as a guitarist, he formed the Satellites, which cut his most well-known song, the teenage lover’s lament “Last Chance,” at Cosimo’s studio in 1959. Released on Sho-Biz records, the single hit #82 on the national pop charts, backed by the guitar-driven “Little Girl Next Door,” which writer Michael Hurtt calls “a raving rocker that has since become a cult classic on the underground rockabilly scene.”
According to New Orleans pianist Al Farrell of the Midnight Streetcar band, “Last Chance” was recorded on a particularly memorable night in Louisiana history: Halloween 1959. Collay had just split with the Satellites to enlist with Farrell’s Counts and was due to join them at a club that night. But before he could make that gig, he had a song to wax – a job he had promised to the Satellites. After the session, when Collay finally showed up to play with the Counts, a roar exploded from the crowd. Farrell assumed the audience was excited to see Collay. In short, no: Turns out Billy Cannon had just returned his legendary punt for 89 yards against Ole Miss at Tiger Stadium, breaking seven tackles to lead #1 LSU to a 7-3 victory over the #3 Rebels and an eventual national championship – a gridiron milestone immortalized by Ponderosa Stomp favorite Jay Chevalier in his rockabilly opus “Billy Cannon.”
In all, Collay released several 45s produced by Allen Toussaint and Mac Rebennack for ShoBiz, Instant, and Ace. “Nice eight-piece arrangements,” Collay told pianist Tom McDermott in a 1997 profile. “I think they still hold up.”
By the 1960s, fate swept Collay to Atlanta, where he stayed for 30 years, during which time he made the self-taught switch from guitar to piano. In the ’80s he hit a career peak in joining the nine-piece band Atlanta, which he described as “country-rock with Four Freshmen-style harmonies, which got the big push … before music industry wrangling tore the band apart.” The group made two albums on MCA and scored gold records via tunes such as “Sweet Country Music,”“Atlanta Burned Again Last Night,” and “Dixie Dreaming.”
By the early 1990s Collay had returned to the New Orleans area, living for a time on a St. Bernard relative’s houseboat at Delacroix Island, and resumed playing in the place where his career had begun – only this time as a “piano professor” in the Mac Rebennack/Ronnie Barron/Skip Easterling mold.
Allen Collay tinkles the keys at Andrew Jaeger's now-defunct House of Seafood in the French Quarter
By 1997, Collay was the featured entertainer at Andrew Jaeger’s House of Seafood in the French Quarter, playing up to five nights a week in a trio with longtime Dr. John drummer Freddie Staehle and bassist Paul Walter, supplemented by sit-in visitors such as trumpeters Jack Fine and Charlie Miller, and saxophonist Jerry Jumonville. Collay’s repertoire, described by profiler McDermott, was “Ray Charles meets New Orleans, with big helpings of Brother Ray and Mac and lesser portions of James Booker, Oscar Peterson and Nat Cole.”
But Collay was in his element playing to Metairie’s “late-night” subculture at the Critic’s Choice lounge in a gig that would run weekend nights from 1 a.m. to 4 a.m. A hut-like dive with its particle-board walls and high-school graduation photos adorning the back room, Critic’s Choice was a magnet for a stunning array of old-school characters who were still young enough to ramble all night long on their steady diets of nicotine, booze, and music: The toupéed Frankie from Frankie and Johnnie’s furniture store (“Go see the Special Man”); longtime Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop pianist Johnny Gordon; the trumpet-playing Irish cut-up Al McCrossen; and former flamboyant Metairie nightclub owner/singer Frankie Brent, then in the grips of a musculoskeletal disorder that seemed to have twisted his body in perpetual pain – yet he still occasionally took the mike to sing a hair-raising version of “These Arms of Mine.” Any number of musicians – whether pros or merely amateurs with one or two standards to sing – would show up to jam till the sun came up, with Collay cracking jokes or crying out “Play some Dixie!” to egg the guest soloist on.
Collay’s local performance schedule peaked in the late 1990s with an appearance at the French Quarter Festival. Chef Jaeger also opened a supper club a block away from his restaurant and featured Collay leading a “history of New Orleans music” revue with players such as Staehle, chanteuse Ellen Smith, bassists David Lee Watson and Al Arthur, and guitarist Cranston Clements. But by then Collay’s health began to sour, dogged by diabetes and mini-strokes. The Max lounge in Metairie was the site of Collay’s final regular music residency, a weekend graveyard shift with a tight jazzy trio featuring Staehle on drums and Ray Shall on Hammond organ.
Numerous guests dropped in on Collay’s late-night sessions, but one illustrious visitor stands out in particular. His former producer, Allen Toussaint, happened to be attending an anniversary showing of Stevenson Palfi’s film “Piano Players Rarely Ever Play Together” at the New Orleans Museum of Art. This writer approached Toussaint – aware that the funk master had produced Collay’s early singles – and floated Collay’s name. His eyes leapt. “Where is he playing?” Toussaint asked, looking around almost frantically to borrow a pen for directions to The Max. When I finally showed up there hours later, I heard from awed witnesses that Toussaint had indeed just left the building after checking out his former protégé’s first set.
Allen Collay with WWOZ DJ Billy Delle at Collay's 2004 benefit
The ailing Collay then moved north to Missouri with his girlfriend, and soon his health problems reached a new low when both legs had to be amputated. Collay returned to New Orleans in August 2004 for a benefit to help defray his expenses. A who’s who of New Orleans musicians showed up to take the stage at the Harahan Lions Club, led by Frankie Ford and Skip Easterling. Now gone, Collay is truly an unsung hero of New Orleans rock ‘n’ roll, and “one that got away” from the Ponderosa Stomp.
For Michael Hurtt’s Offbeat magazine profile of Allen Collay, click here.
Ponderosa Stomp fans know that the most magical sounds often emanate from the most primitive of conditions. Take, for instance, the flood of hits that flowed from the legendary 15-by-16-foot hole in the wall that comprised Cosimo Matassa’s original J&M recording studio on Rampart Street. The same with Eddie Shuler’s tiny Goldband studio, which he opened in the rear of his TV repair shop in Lake Charles. The landmark songs recorded in just those two Looziana incubators – like Antoine Domino’s “The Fat Man,” Guitar Slim’s “The Things I Used to Do,” and Phil Phillips’ “Sea of Love” – mesmerize listeners almost because of their technical limitations, not in spite of them.
Jivin' Gene Bourgeois
Likewise, Jivin’ Gene, aka Gene Bourgeois, of Port Arthur, Texas, began his ascent to swamp-pop immortality by singing in the toilet. Not his greatest hit, “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do,” but rather the equally swampy “Going Out With the Tide,” later covered by another Meaux protégé, Freddy Fender (here in a duet with Tommy McLain).
“He walked in with blue jeans and bare feet and kinda like Clark Kent’s version of Superman, with horn-rimmed glasses. And he wanted me to record his rock ‘n’ roll band. I told him I didn’t know what the hell I was doing, but if he wanted to bring his band in, let’s get down to it. In the KPAC studio there was an old Magnecord in mono – you never heard of stereo in those days – and two pots and a toilet in the corner of the room. And he had to sing in the toilet. I had a big old RCA ribbon mike, a diamond-shaped thing, and I hung it up on the boom and put my amplifiers in a horseshoe shape. The drums had to be way back. I thought I was gonna have to put them out in the street before it was over ‘cause it was getting too loud. I called [Ville Platte’s Jin label owner] Floyd [Soileau], saying, ‘I think this guy has potential.’”
Soileau would release “Going Out With the Tide” as Jin 109 (backed with “Up, Up, and Away”), and it became a regional hit. Bourgeois confirms the story, but with a different twist. “Yeah, I really did sing in the shitter. But it was because I was so shy, I didn’t want anyone looking at me when I sang,” he told the 30 Days Out blogger.
In a separate post, 30 Days Out writes about the sonic effects of the commode in creating the plaintive swamp-pop sound (though apparently confusing “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” with “Going Out With the Tide”):
“My favorite Gene story was about the time they recorded ‘Breaking Up Is Hard To Do’ at KPAC radio studios in Port Arthur. Gene used to get stage fright when he sang, even when the audience was only his band and a producer. So Huey stuck Gene in the men’s room along with a microphone and turned out the lights. The great echo you hear on the song came from that location – and it became a trademark of the great Texas-Meets-Louisiana swamp rock sound. Every time I think of Port Arthur, that tune begins to play in my brain: ‘Breaking up is hard to doooooooo/Making up is the thing to doooooooo.’”
Meaux and Soileau then booked a recording session for Jivin’ Gene at Jay Miller’s storied studio in Crowley, La., and it was there that Gene cut the definitive version of his most famous tune, “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do,” which hit #69 on the Billboard charts in 1959. According to Soileau:
“It was about Gene’s wife problems. We did a Fats Domino-type thing and put the record out. Right away Huey started getting airplay on it in East Texas, and I got airplay on it down in this area, and things started happening. And Bill Hall still had his eyes open, and we made a deal with him to get it in on Mercury Records. And as a result his Big Bopper Music got the publishing on the original sides and that was his compensation. And Huey managed the artist and I had the record label and the record company, so I had my compensation. We had a three-way thing going there for a while, and Mercury took on with Jivin’ Gene and did fairly well with him.”
Gene went on to do further recording for Mercury, mostly in Nashville, even redoing a version of “Going Out With the Tide” – cum violins – that made The Cash Box listings in 1960. However, somewhere in the process the “swamp” got taken out of the swamp pop. As Warren Storm, whose own Nashville recordings sound slightly castrated compared with his Louisiana-recorded oeuvre, would tell Shane Bernard in “Swamp Pop: Cajun and Creole Rhythm and Blues” about his Music City studio experience:
“Oh yeah. It wasn’t swamp pop. It was more pop than anything else. … It was the Nashville sound, that’s where it was. Nashville. … It was mechanical because it was the Nashville sound. All the records that came out of there, it was the same music background.”
(Apparently Nashville producers found little need to turn to the outhouse as an acoustical accoutrement, what with Floyd Cramer, Boots Randolph, and Chet Atkins in house at any given time.)
Bourgeois would later record for Chess, Hall-Way, and TCF-Hall into the 1960s before dropping out of music for almost 20 years and working as an insulator – reportedly even plying his trade on the Alaskan pipeline like so many other Cajuns who have found work around the globe in the petroleum industry both on- and offshore. [See author Woody Falgoux's "Rise of the Cajun Mariners."]
By the 1980s, nostalgia for the past took hold, and the accolades began to pour in. Gene was inducted in 1993 into the Louisiana Hall of Fame (Lou Gabus’ precursor to the current hall) and the Museum of the Gulf Coast Music Hall of Fame in 1995, and he received the Louisiana Hall of Fame Living Legend Award in June 2003.
Jivin' Gene Bourgeois sings at a 2004 benefit at Pat's in Henderson, La.
In recent years Gene has joined forces with fellow East Texan Ken Marvel, a keyboardist and singer whose working band provides able backing for Bourgeois on his semi-regular gigs. However, as a bandleader in his own right, Marvel is not content, like so many other groups, to merely recycle the golden swamp-pop oldies in letter-perfect, note-for-note renditions. Yes, he pays tribute to the masters, but on his two CDs (“Mr. Swamp Pop” and “Swamp Pop Music”) Marvel has actually written numerous well-crafted original songs with mature themes, sung with passion and earnestness. And it doesn’t hurt that he uses a crack coonass band for his recording sessions (including Warren Storm, Wayne Toups, Jon Smith, Pat Breaux, Jason Parfait, Steve Grisaffe, Tony Ardoin, and Mike Burch, among others). Be sure to catch Marvel playing around East Texas’ Golden Triangle area or else at his occasional Louisiana appearances.
No longer reliant on the porcelain gods for acoustical succor, Jivin’ Gene has reunited with Floyd Soileau’s Jin label with a new CD, “It’s Never Too Late,” recorded at David Rachou’s La Louisianne studio in Lafayette and released in 2009. Gene wrote or co-wrote nearly every cut on the 14-song CD and is backed by Warren Storm on drums and rubboard, Ken Marvel on keys, and Rick Folse (son of legendary Vin Bruce band alumnus Pott Folse) on sax, among others.
Don’t miss Jivin’ Gene at this year’s Ponderosa Stomp. To buy tickets, click here. To learn more about this swamp-pop legend, read this and this.
Jivin' Gene's 2009 release on the Jin label, featuring his original songs and drumming by Warren Storm
Louisiana swamp-pop supergroup Lil’ Band o’ Gold, led by Ponderosa Stomp stalwarts Warren Storm and C.C. Adcock, has once again attracted the attention of an international superstar, this time English singer and fashion designer Lily Allen, who hired the band to play her wedding reception June 11. A fitting choice, given swamp pop’s fetishized focus on nuptials, their associated soap operas, and all their lachrymose trappings, from Lil’ Alfred’s “Walking Down the Aisle” to Margo White’s “You Had Your Chance” to the song whose lyrics gave Lil’ Band their name: Clint West’s “Big Blue Diamonds.”
Superstar Lily Allen celebrated her new lil' band o' gold (or was it a big blue diamond?) by hiring Lafayette supergroup Lil' Band o' Gold to play at her wedding June 11 in England
Being not quite our cup of tea musically, Allen won’t be gracing the Stomp lineup anytime soon, but her unabashed ardor for LBOG isn’t the first time the swampy ensemble has mesmerized Brit popsters. Several years ago Led Zeppelin vocal banshee Robert Plant joined LBOG to record two tracks (“It Keeps Rainin’” and “I’ve Been Around”) for the Fats Domino tribute CD “Goin’ Home,” capped by a live performance at Tipitina’s preceded by a storied soundcheck at which the Fat Man himself joined in with a microphone while nursing a few beers at the bar.
Then, in 2010, Elvis Costello took the stage with LBOG for a Bobby Charles tribute performance at the House of Blues’ Parish Room, singing “Big Boys Cry” and “Before I Grow Too Old,” joined on the latter by swamp-pop legend Tommy McLain.
How did a relative youngster like Allen, who wasn’t even old enough to buy a Guinness when LBOG released their first CD in 1999, hear of the group? According to the London Telegraph:
For the pop singer Lily Allen, it was while listening to the mix CDs that her fiancé Sam Cooper made her when they first dated a few summers back. “You can hear the experience they have in their amazing voices,” she says. Allen jokes that they have spent half their budget flying out all eight members of the group to play at their wedding. “It will be worth it,” she says. “They are already classic and it will be a good way of feeling like Tarka [Cordell, Sam's half-brother and the band's late producer] is there.”
Indeed, Allen apparently couldn’t contain her groupie-like excitement about the band’s impending arrival, tweeting: “Lil’ Band of Gold are coming to london !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Joined by Tommy McLain, the group made their London debut at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire on June 14, screening their documentary film “The Promised Land: A Swamp-Pop Journey,” followed by a live performance showcasing songs from their newish CD of the same name on the Room 609 label.
How did the thick Cajun musical gumbo go down at the celebrity-filled reception at Allen’s Gloucestershire estate? Allen tweeted June 13: “I had the most amazing wedding, thank you to everyone who went to such extraordinary efforts to make it that way. Lil Band Of Gold were incredible and they’re playing Shepherd’s Bush Empire tomorrow, I urge you all to go go. And watch them.” She even went so far as to post a link so her fans could buy tickets to the London show.
Though we quibble with his mild criticism of “plodding instead of pounding,” writer Rick Pearson of This Is London scrawled this glowing review about LBOG’s performance in a piece titled “Lil’ Band O’ Gold are fabulous company”:
Say what you will about Lily Allen, but she has impeccable taste in wedding bands.
Lil’ Band O’ Gold, an eight-headed swamp-pop monster from deep Louisiana, played at the singer’s wedding on the weekend and last night came to west London for a rare live showing.
Their recent album, “The Promised Land”, is only their second in 11 years, and had you brought a cat with you to a far-from-full O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, there would easily have been room to swing it.
However, those that were in attendance – mostly men of a certain vintage – were first treated to a film of the band and then a triumphant, two-hour performance.
Songs turned over at a rapid pace, pinballing from raucous rhythm ‘n’ blues (“Teardrops”) to quivering country-rock (“I Don’t Wanna Know”). Vocal duties were shared, although drummer Warren Storm had the best pipes.
And the group were joined by crooner-cum-Catholic minister Tommy McLain, whose gravelly turn on “Jukebox Songs” was almost as striking as his sparkly gold jacket and mighty beard.
Not to be outdone, David Egan channelled his inner Randy Newman on the rambling piano ballad “Dreamer,” before Steve Riley put his accordion through its paces on the 12-bar blues of “Ain’t No Child No More.”
There were too many mid-tempo, momentum-sapping ballads to make this a truly great gig: Lil’ Band Of Gold have a tendency to plod when they should pound.
For the most part, though, they were fabulous company. And let’s hope it doesn’t take another celebrity wedding before they’re back with us again.
In the meantime, let’s laud Lily Allen for her musical discernment, and “I Hope” her marriage is a super jolly success – one that doesn’t end in any “Lonely, Lonely Nights” for the lovely lassie.
“There is a New Orleans city accent … associated with downtown New Orleans, particularly with the German and Irish Third Ward, that is hard to distinguish from the accent of Hoboken, Jersey City, and Astoria, Long Island, where the Al Smith inflection, extinct in Manhattan, has taken refuge. The reason, as you might expect, is that the same stocks that brought the accent to Manhattan imposed it on New Orleans.” – A.J. Liebling, “The Earl of Louisiana,” the famous quote introducing John Kennedy Toole’s “A Confederacy of Dunces”
Rumors of the New Orleans Yat’s demise have been greatly exaggerated. Despite the best efforts of invasive hipster gentrification and federal levee failures to eradicate this indigenous species from its native habitats like the 9th Ward, the humble Yat survives — but has been driven underground. Some Yats even manage to thrive in this brave new world of HBO caricaturization and Hollywood co-optation – and not just in Bunny Matthews cartoons. In fact, recent sightings even confirm the existence of the now-almost-mythical Yatasaurus Rex.
Should you, fearless explorer, venture out on any moonlit Saturday night to a strip mall near the airport, at Kenner’s Third Rock Tavern at Williams and Veterans boulevards, you might spy not one, but two, of these Yatasaurus Rexes: none other than guitarist Charlie Cuccia and drummer Jeff Hicks — both original members of the locally noted T.Q. and the Topcats, who now hew off beefy slabs of blood-and-guts rock ‘n’ roll as “Da Meat Department” band.
Original Topcats member Charlie "Jake the Snake" Cuccia - still rocking after all these years
Through plumes of thick smoke, in between high-octane libations and corny double-entendre jokes, these Bourbon Street and Jefferson Parish lounge veterans crank out classic-rock covers with a grit and soul you won’t find in some wimpy, miserable politically correct Frenchmen Street outfit. Eschewing most of the traditional New Orleans canon for the likes of Stones, Chuck Berry, and Dylan — sung in sandpaper rasps evoking Howlin’ Wolf and Captain Beefheart — they somehow come off as more authentically New Orleans than any vanilla retro “roots-rock” band.
With snifter of Grand Marnier in hand and rooster-like ducktail in full glory, Cuccia exhorts his Yat minions to “raise your glasses, children of the Williams Boulevard!” before launching into a towering “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” while Hicks recalls his days of selling cars for New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson in rhapsodizing about a stripper he used to love at the nearby Downs Lounge in Metry – all to the tune of Bob Seger’s “Main Street.”
Revisit the 1970s and recall, if you dare, the moribund radio soundtrack of the time: the ponderously toxic art-rock sludge of bands like Yes; Genesis; Emerson, Lake and Palmer; and King Crimson. Even Led Zeppelin stooped low enough to invoke “the winds of Thor.” It was to this music — as well as more earthbound acts such as Heart, Skynyrd, Journey, and New Orleans’ own Zebra — that young Yats cruised along Wisner Boulevard in their souped-up Trans-Ams, roaring along Lakeshore Drive past Bart’s restaurant, all the way to the Point at West End for a quick toke before copping a feel off their feather-haired Stevie Nicks-wannabe girlfriends.
Enter Charlie Cuccia and Jeff Hicks, circa 1972. Cuccia and Hicks are proud co-founders of T.Q. and the Topcats, a band that still performs today as the Topcats, though with no original members. Gloriously retro before retro was cool, T.Q. and the Topcats defiantly rocked out old-school-style in the face of the 20-minute, mythology-and-melodrama-infused rock-opera opuses of the day.
T.Q. and the Topcats at Lake Pontchartrain in the 1970s
T.Q. and the Topcats were a Crescent City version of Sha Na Na — on gumbo-laden steroids. According to the Topcats’ Web site : “Originally formed at East Jefferson High School in Metairie, La., with their first practice in a garage on September 28th, 1972, T.Q. & The Topcats were a ’50s and early ’60s show band. The group performed all of the classic songs of the pre-Beatles era of rock and roll. Every song the band did was performed with outrageous choreography or some type of skit with costumes, smoke and special lighting. They also did tributes to Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Buddy Holly. Everyone in the band sang and did choreography and everyone had a nickname to put across the feeling of a hoodlum gang of the 1950′s.” Cuccia leered under the reptilian alias “Jake the Snake,” while Hicks sported the hirsute handle of “Belch A. Rooney.”
Vintage video of the band in its greaser heyday — including the unbelievable sight of an ax-wielding Cuccia executing dangerously ball-busting splits mid-solo — can be seen herein, on Chuck Berry’s “Maybelline” and “Roll Over, Beethoven,” as well as on the Gary U.S. Bonds cover “New Orleans,” in which Hicks belts out the lead vocal on a tribute to his native stomping grounds.
T.Q. and the Topcats played the New Orleans area and expanded their reach throughout the Southeast, eventually making their way to Las Vegas and Los Angeles. They shared the stage with stars such as Dick Dale, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Billy Joel, while a notable photo from September 1976 records for posterity the band’s meeting with “Bedtime for Bonzo” star Ronald Reagan.
T.Q. and the Topcats with Ronald Reagan
A fascinating piece of black-and-white footage shows T.Q and company interacting with Johnny Carson on the “Stump the Band” segment of “The Tonight Show.” Viewing the video, the linguistic link between New Orleans and New York City has never been clearer. As the slick Dionysus-like Cuccia raps with Carson, I’m not sure if I’m seeing and hearing Vinny Barbarino, John Gotti Jr., or the frontman for T.Q and the Topcats. At any rate, the T.Q. gang — looking like they had just kicked the asses of the Jets from “West Side Story” in a parking-lot rumble — endures Carson’s playful putdowns before launching into an incredibly soulful, handclapping, a capella rendition of “Iko Iko” that would make the harmonizing Valence Street-era lineup of the Neville Brothers proud.
In 1980, capping a flurry of personnel changes and stylistic shifts, Cuccia and Hicks exited the group, which is now known simply as the Topcats. But the duo continued to ply their musical chops in nightclubs from Bourbon Street to Williams Boulevard. Cuccia also has cut a CD on Gary Edwards’ Sound of New Orleans label, featuring top local sidemen such as saxophonist Jerry Jumonville, guitarist Cranston Clements, keyboardist Joe Krown, and drummer Barry Flippen. To purchase or to hear samples, click here.
The rooster-maned Charlie "Jake the Snake" Cuccia - still crazy after all these years (seen here in a natural habitat: the Old Opera House on Bourbon Street, where he often plays with the Old No. 7 Band)
Besides playing Saturday nights at the Third Rock with the “Meat Department” band, Cuccia also leads the Swinging Jewels (sans Hicks) on Thursday nights at Waloo’s on North Causeway Boulevard in Metry. The Jewels comprise drummer Joey Catalanotto from the Wiseguys; grittily soulful singer-songwriter Gary Hirstius (also a former Topcat); and bassist Thomas McDonald, who has probably picked up a riff or two from his legendary neighbor: jazz and R&B bassist Peter “Chuck” Badie of Harold Battiste’s trailblazing AFO Records. A monsterly funky bassist, McDonald also can sing his ass off — as well as slap out a scatlike syncopated melody on his shaved head. His version of Irma Thomas’ “It’s Raining,” otherwise known as the national anthem of the state of Louisiana, is as soul-drenched as the original, and his vocal modulations will make your baby’s heart flutter and squeeze you a little bit tighter as you’re slow-dragging together on the dancefloor.
Yes, hearts are fluttering at a Swinging Jewels/Meat Department show, but so is the laughter. These wisecracking clowns are simply hilarious. When you’ve played for decades on Bourbon Street for practically nothing but the sheer love of rock ‘n’ roll, you’ve got to develop a sense of humor. The outrageous jokes and Three Stooges humor run constantly like diarrhea of the mouth as the musicians take verbal shots at the audience and each other.
Coasting on seemingly nine lives, the modern-day incarnation of the Topcats is busier than ever, still playing club dates, school fairs, and festivals. But the heart and the soul of the band once known as T.Q. and the Topcats resides elsewhere, and can usually be found on Williams Boulevard in the unforgettable — and only in New Orleans — form of Charlie Cuccia and Jeff Hicks, brothers for life in their own uniquely hardcore brand of hey-brah groove.
The primal drumming and gut-bucket vocal stylings of original Topcats member Jeff Hicks (aka Belch A. Rooney) are totally out of this world - and totally rock 'n' roll, brah
Frogman Henry leads a Ponderosa Stomp Revue this Wednesday that also features Jean "Mr. Big Stuff" Knight, Al "Carnival Time" Johnson, Bobby Allen, and Paul "Lil' Buck" Sinegal.
This is a rare local appearance by Frogman, 74, but the pairing with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame sponsorship couldn’t be more appropriate. After all, as Frogman tells it, he learned at least some of his musical chops from several legendary Louisiana inductees, such as:
Henry Roeland Byrd, aka Professor Longhair: “I used to sneak into the Pepper Pot (in nearby Gretna) to see Professor Longhair. It was just him and a drummer, but it sounded like a whole band in there. When I played talent shows at school, I played his numbers and dressed just like him with tails and a long Indian wig.” [“The Soul of New Orleans: A Legacy of Rhythm and Blues” by Jeff Hannusch]
Antoine “Fats” Domino: “Fats was my inspiration. When I sat down at the piano, I tried to play everything he did. As far as I’m concerned, Fats is the real king of rock and roll.”
Dave Bartholomew: Frogman’s first brush with Bartholomew – Fats’ producer, bandleader, and co-writer – was during his stint with Bobby Mitchell’s Toppers, with whom Frogman got his start, eventually recording several Imperial sides with the group. According to Hannusch, “the Toppers auditioned for Imperial’s Dave Bartholomew, who thought the teenagers had potential. Henry played trombone on the group’s first session but eventually got fired because he missed a gig in order to attend his own shotgun wedding.”
Al "Carnival Time" Johnson, backed by guitarist Irving Bannister at Stomp 2004, is singing this Wednesday at a Stomp Revue sponsored by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The split from Mitchell and the Toppers proved to be fateful. After high school, Frogman began working as a pianist at local West Bank clubs, and it was at the legendary Joy Lounge at Fourth Street and Huey P. Long Avenue in Gretna where Henry was inspired to write his most famous song, “Ain’t Got No Home” – and thus the Frogman was born. According to a 1999 Times-Picayune profile by Bill Grady:
Henry conceived the tune in a rare moment of annoyance while playing the Joy Lounge in Gretna in 1956. The bandleader, Eddie Smith, wouldn’t let the musicians quit until the place emptied of customers, and Clarence was bushed. “I was trying to tell the people to go home, so I hit a riff on the piano and I start singing, ‘Woo-woo-oo-oo-oo, ain’t got no home,’” Henry said. “I got my nickname from a disc jockey at WJMR, Poppa Stoppa. People were requesting the song. They’d say, ‘Play the frog song by the frog man!’ So Poppa Stoppa said, ‘From now on, you Frogman.’”
Recorded for the Chess label by New Orleans bandleader Paul Gayten and powered by key Domino sidemen Lee Allen and Walter “Papoose” Nelson, the song climbed to #3 on the Billboard R&B chart and took Frogman to auditoriums all over the country, including the Apollo. Over the years it has sold more than 8 million copies, having been featured in films such as “Diner” and “The Lost Boys” and – more infamously – as theme music on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show. Other standout songs include “Lonely Tramp,”“I’m in Love,” and “You Always Hurt the One You Love,” which features piano by another Rock and Roll Hall of Famer, Allen Toussaint.
Guitarist Paul "Lil Buck" Sinegal, seen here in 2002 with the late Nat Jolivette at the Circle Bar, leads the band at this Wednesday's Stomp Revue also featuring Jean Knight and Bobby Allen.
But the music didn’t stop with “Ain’t Got No Home.” With an assist from Louisiana songwriting legend and Chess labelmate Bobby Charles, Frogman scored his biggest hit with “(I Don’t Know Why) But I Do,” which reached #4 on the national pop chart and has gone on to be featured in numerous films, including “Forrest Gump.” No less an authority than sex goddess/actress Elizabeth Hurley called “But I Do,” which appeared in the Hugh Grant-James Caan film “Mickey Blue Eyes,” “one of the most heavenly songs ever recorded.”
Seen here in 2004, Frogman Henry will be performing this Wednesday at the Howlin' Wolf for a Ponderosa Stomp Revue sponsored by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Oddy enough, this wasn’t Frogman’s only association with Cajun music legends. According to Hannusch, after leaving Chess, Frogman joined forces with the notorious producer Huey Meaux of Winnie, Texas, recording “five great singles for Meaux that were leased to Parrot Records including the classic ‘Cajun Honey.’” Frogman also interpreted material supplied by another swamp-pop songwriter of Bobby Charles’ caliber whose ditties Domino also had waxed: “There was a guy out of Biloxi, Jimmy Donley, that wrote great country songs. He used to write and record for Huey so there were a lot of his songs around. He wrote ‘Think It Over,’ which was one of my favorite tunes.” In recent years, this writer has heard Frogman refer to his own music as “swamp pop” – no doubt because his repertoire has never gone out of style in the dance-crazed, more rural areas of southernmost Louisiana, whose musicians in cross-fertilizing fashion crafted their own New Orleans-inspired swamp-pop tunes, fueled as they were by the sounds of Crescent City-style R&B emanating from the city’s radio stations.
Frogman Henry smiles as ailing swamp-pop legend Joe Barry sings in public for the last time before his death in 2004.
In 1964 Frogman had his greatest brush with fame – that is, with Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees the Beatles, opening 18 concerts for the Fab Four, including at New Orleans’ City Park Stadium. Frogman then plied his trade on Bourbon Street, tinkling the ivories for 19 years in various clubs during a storied era when giants such as Cousin Joe, Al Hirt, Pete Fountain, and Frankie Ford still trod that famous musical conduit. His contributions to music have been recognized by his induction into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame as well as the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame, to name just a few.
Frogman Henry fans John, Paul, George, and Ringo clown with the New Orleans R&B legend in 1964.
One of Frogman’s later songs, ironically first recorded by British duo Chas and Dave, perfectly encapsulates the New Orleans piano tradition with goosebump-generating gusto. Pure rollicking R&B in a joyous, pounding Fats-style, “That Old Piano” tells the story of how such magical music has so often sprung from the humblest of origins, rooted in family traditions passed down from generation to generation during house parties and Saturday-night fish fries where a beat-up piano served as the centerpiece of interaction and the primary inducement for dancing. This video features Frogman performing the song live with a full band.
Though still going strong when he does gig, Frogman’s influence will now certainly live on in the music of his son, Clarence “Tadpole” Henry III, who performs R&B and soul at local clubs and festivals. Still, Ponderosa Stomp fans should come out Wednesday night to see why we think rock immortality in Cleveland should be the next stop for the Frogman, one of the treasured survivors of the golden age of New Orleans R&B. “People want to see the Frogman, but you know the Frogman wants to see the people too,” Henry once told Jeff Hannusch. So go see the Frogman, a very Special Man …
Frogman Henry smiles alongside Texas shouter Roy Head, with Stomp kingpin Dr. Ike at right.
The Ponderosa Stomp Revue, presented by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, is set for June 8 (Wednesday) at 9 p.m. at the Howlin’ Wolf at 907 S. Peters St. in New Orleans.
Ex-Stax recording artist Jean "Mr. Big Stuff" Knight, whose hits also include "You Got the Papers (I Got the Man)" and "My Toot Toot," is singing at the Stomp Revue this Wednesday at New Orleans' Howlin' Wolf.
