Move over, New York and the ladies of “She’s Got the Power!” Because a true daughter of Dixie, Lavelle White, who can be claimed to varying degrees by Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi (not to mention Chicago), is bringing her singular mix of blues, R&B, gospel, and funk to the 2011 Ponderosa Stomp.
Schooled in the blues by guitarist Clarence Holliman, Lavelle White broke onto the scene by recording numerous singles for Don Robey’s Duke label, including today’s Song of the Day, “Stop These Teardrops,” which features Mac Rebennack on piano.
“Listen. I want to explain something to everybody. I am not a blues singer! I sing blues because that’s what people want. I also sing funk, soul, country, and spiritual. I’m all of that. When I first started singing, it was rhythm and blues. I didn’t just do blues. … With me, it’s funk, soul, blues, jazz, and a little rap.” Thus does chanteuse Miss Lavelle White set the record straight in the book “Women in Texas Music: Stories and Songs.”
White’s music career began in the 1950s, when she brought her powerful Dinah Washington-influenced vocal style and songwriting talents to Houston’s rich R&B scene. Early on she worked with Clarence Holliman: “I came to the clubs singing, and I couldn’t carry a tune in a paper bag. Clarence taught me my timing.” She eventually got a break and started recording for Don Robey’s Duke/Peacock label with assistance from Johnny “Clyde” Copeland. “He was on the first record that I did for Duke Records: ‘If I Could Be With You”/”Teenage Love.”
The Mississippi-born White waxed nearly a dozen singles for Duke, including “Just Look at You Fool,” “The Tide of Love,” “Yes, I’ve Been Crying,” and “Stop These Teardrops.” She also wrote “Lead Me On” for Duke labelmate Bobby “Blue” Bland and toured nationally throughout the 1950s and ’60s with artists such as B.B. King, James Brown, Junior Parker, Sam Cooke, Gene Chandler, Gladys Knight and the Pips, the Isley Brothers, Aretha Franklin, and Smokey Robinson.
In the late 1970s White moved to Chicago and became a favorite on the local blues scene, headlining at the Kingston Mines and other clubs from 1978 to 1987 and working with Junior Wells and the Louisiana-born bluesmen Lonnie “Guitar Junior” Brooks and Buddy Guy. Of Guy she says: “Go to Buddy Guy’s club. He’s a wonderful person. He’s marvelous. He’s beautiful.”
She returned to Houston in 1988 and once again began working the clubs, eventually settling in Austin in the early 1990s, where she recorded three highly acclaimed CDs, “Miss Lavelle,”“It Haven’t Been Easy,” and “Into the Mystic.” A four-time W.C. Handy Awards nominee and a Texas Music Hall of Fame inductee, White is an exciting addition to the Ponderosa Stomp lineup.
Swamp-pop pioneer Ernie Suarez, otherwise known as Roy “Boogie Boy” Perkins, makes a triumphant return to the 2011 Ponderosa Stomp after several years’ absence. No doubt he won’t get away without rendering his Meladee-label tear-jerking dirge, “You’re on My Mind,” one of the earliest swamp-pop records.
But as today’s Song of the Day – “Ba Da” – attests, Perkins could do a lot more than just cry in his beer. As a bass player with Bobby Page and the Riff-Raffs, Perkins and gang, which also featured sax players Jimmy “Scatman” Patin and Harry Simoneaux, recorded for Mira Smith’s Shreveport-based Ram label under various aliases. The stellar reissue of this material on the UK’s Ace label allows the modern-day listener to enjoy pounding rockers like “Red Beans & Rice,” “Hippy-Ti-Yo,” and “Drop Top” (the latter of which recently surfaced in the background of a Yoplait yogurt commercial), as well as swampy ballads like “Just Another Lie” and “That’s What the Mailman Had to Say,” which evoke Perkins’”You’re On My Mind.”
Perkins retired from music in the 1970s until the Mystic Knights of the Mau-Mau dug him out of obscurity in 2001 for a Circle Bar musical showcase. The Ponderosa Stomp is pleased to announce this seminal rock ‘n’ roller’s return to the stage this year. See his full Stomp bio for more information on his fascinating career. And by the way: Bobby “Boogas” Page is still at it, singing and playing trombone with Bobby and the Rockers at south Louisiana venues like Pat’s Atchafalaya Club in Henderson.
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!
Today’s “Song of the Day” is a shout-out to both the girls – and the “Goodfellas.” With Dolores “LaLa” Brooks of the Crystals performing at July 30’s Ponderosa Stomp showcase “She’s Got the Power! A Girl Group Extravaganza,” we present to you two versions of the Crystals’ Phil Spector-produced smash hit “Then He Kissed Me.”
First is the famously sweeping, one-take scene from Martin Scorsese’s “Goodfellas,” in which “Then He Kissed Me” plays as Scorsese’s camera continuously follows gangster Henry Hill (Ray Liotta) escorting future wife Karen (Lorraine Bracco) through the Copacabana nightclub. Click here to see the scene with the Crystals in the background.
According to Wikipedia:
“The long tracking shot through the Copacabana nightclub came about because of a practical problem: the filmmakers could not get permission to go in the short way and this forced them to go round the back. Scorsese decided to do it in one shot in order to symbolize Henry’s whole life is ahead of him and according to the director: ‘It’s his seduction of her [Karen] and it’s also the lifestyle seducing him.’ This sequence was shot eight times.”
And here is “Then He Kissed Me” without the distractions of movie dialogue – just the Crystals’ spine-tingling vocals and Spector’s universally acclaimed “Wall of Sound.”
For a full schedule of “She’s Got the Power!” festivities, which run July 30 in New York in association with Lincoln Center Out of Doors, see here.
The concluding concert features 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), 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), Peggy Santiglia Davison and Jiggs Sirico (of The Angels®). Backed by The Boyfriends, with musical director Jeremy Chatzky.
It’s not quite TGIF yet, and it’s not quite Mardi Gras yet, but this song should get you in the mood for both. Drink in the rich, testosterone-filled sounds (and flamboyant sight) of a purple-garbed Frankie Ford‘s romping rendition of Fats Domino’s classic “Whiskey Heaven.” Watch as Ford pounds the keys just like Huey “Piano” Smith and Clarence “Frogman” Henry taught him to all those years ago, during the halcyon days of New Orleans R&B. Sneak a peak at the orgasmic grimace Ford makes at minute 2:18 during longtime Allen Toussaint sideman and Chocolate Milk member Amadee Castenell‘s masterful tenor solo, which Ford introduces with the phrase “Now we gonna play one for your hangover.” Apparently, Castenell’s sax had the cure for Ford’s aches and pains.
Ooo-wee, baby — can’t wait! Gretna’s favorite and possibly most famous son is cruising over from the West Bank to the Howlin’ Wolf in New Orleans’ Warehouse District for his first appearance at the Ponderosa Stomp this year. Find yourself a designated driver and come.
To buy Ponderosa Stomp tickets, click here. To learn about Stomp travel packages and hotel info, click here.
Meet that famed siren from Huey “Piano” Smith’s Clowns, New Orleans’ own Gerri Hall, lip-synching her song “Who Can I Run To” on “The!!!! Beat” show circa 1966, long after her Clown days. The song was written by another Ponderosa Stomp favorite, Bobby Parker of “Barefootin’” fame, produced by Wardell Querzergue, and originally released on Hot-Line 907. Hall serves as the piercing foil to Bobby Marchan on “Don’t You Just Know It” and as the lead singer on “Popeye,” and of course her vocals are prominently featured on numerous other Clowns 45s, such as “Don’t You Know Yokomo.”
Hall also recorded a handful of collector-prized 45s, including a version of “I Cried a Tear,” which Jerry Wexler leased for Atlantic Records. A native of the Lower Ninth Ward, she was actually nicknamed “Gerri” because of her crazy antics similar to the most popular clown of the time, Jerry Lewis. She is the sister-in-law of Rosemary (Hall) Domino and Reggie Hall. As a longtime habitue and waitress at the Dew Drop Inn, she experienced incredible New Orleans music history firsthand and knew virtually all of the local musicians of New Orleans’ golden age of R&B.
