Let Us Now Celebrate "Don'tcha Just Know It" by Huey 'Piano' Smith & The Clowns

I was just reading about him in Birnbaum's Before Elvis, where his songs are repeatedly cited as links between pre-war boogie woogie and rock 'n' roll. RIP, it's sad that he's gone but also amazing to realize how close in time we still are to that mythic era.

Here's Smith and his band on the b-side to "Sea Cruise":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZxPASRZE-I

I think he even originally did the vocal on "Sea Cruise" but they wiped it and put on Frankie Ford.

The original take was reissued sometime later:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7BA1pu4sXk

At some point I'll learn that threads popping up for ancient people generally means death. It was the first Paul Gambaccini Top 200 book that got me to buy this around 1980, one of the first imports I ever bought:

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQbMtDvPR3yrDPelvmY6BUqHvwOv_CSaGN95Q&usqp=CAU

I really had no idea he was still alive.

First thing I would have consciously heard from him, either original or a cover, was Aerosmith doing "Rockin' Pneumonia" for the Less Than Zero soundtrack back in late 1987 -- lead track on the album IIRC! Given Aerosmith had started the slow descent into cheese by then, it was a nice little moment of them remembering why they did what they did to start with.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1JgH-5BmY

YouTube the one internet thing I want to live forever:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gdDubu1L2Q