Early New Orleans Rock N Roll/R&B

Thanks, hadn't heard of him! Here's a better link for the whole Bobby Charles s/t playlist:
http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLh0ysVWgxTiz5GHBmHfAhrXMDsRlt_8-l

Hurricane Ida destroyed or severely damaged thousands of homes in south Louisiana after the category 4 storm roared ashore on August 29. WWL-TV in New Orleans reports that among those whose homes have been made all but unlivable is New Orleans R&B singer Clarence “Frogman” Henry. His residence in Algiers suffered extensive roof damage which has led to collapsed ceilings and a mold outbreak, yet the music icon continues to live amid the damage while he awaits his insurance claim.

https://www.offbeat.com/news/clarence-frogman-henry-continues-to-live-in-home-severely-damaged-by-hurricane-ida/?fbclid=IwAR16tVgUSxHrydphyr55A6UWYfT-zvrT3BjhMbCPEgf7nt9gj_56ejP7Vhw

Aw, that's sad. And frustrating.

Oh man, I didn't even know he was still alive! That's really terrible, I've gone through something similar but to a much milder extent. Dealing with the insurance companies was like having AAA come over and take a shit on you while you're sitting by your wrecked car.

Awful! In happier news, as I said over on[The Band.
The greatly expanded xpost Bobby Charles turned out to be all worthwhile:
Yall I just listened to the xpost Rhino Handmade 3-CD expansion digital ghost on Spotify (also available as downloads, like maybe all the Handmades; I've noticed Fugs, Beefheart, Television: two more LPs-worth of good-to excellent tracks, which hopefully he still had the rights to put (w/o re-recording) on yon self-released albums, when he reportedly fled Woodstock Babylon for Sweet Home Louisiana(nuthin weird goin' on down there, nuh-uh). Listening this way, I don't have the CD booklet, but who specifically played what on what has always been conjectural, according to my not-very-extensive research, and a lot of this sounds as Bandy as the original s/t; also, several cuts sound like they might incl. Garth *and* Dr. John, ideally enough. Anybody looking for cover material should def. check this out, "You Were There" def. rec. to Willie.

X-post-https://www.wwltv.com/article/weather/hurricane/help-rallies-around-frogman-henry-to-repair-ida-damaged-home/289-6eb6bd54-ebda-43aa-af78-97b4e18e4e12?fbclid=IwAR0pXgj_D6USnqc1tP2IeU8C_T_yCEcQDuyF5WuDoolmbWWjQch7_16SXwU

Volunteers helping Frogman Henry address Ida insurance issue and moldy clothes

Great thread, listening to Vol. 1 of the Cosimo Matassa Story comp, so many great songs.

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/american-south/2021/09/23/new-orleans-dew-drop-inn-revival-green-book-hotel/7413340002/

The home to much mid- 20th century New Orleans sounds the Dew Drop Inn may be coming back. Article has some interesting anecdotes on its historic roots

I see I first posted about Sugar Boy Crawford in this thread 15 years ago. I’ve had my eye out for a compilation of his stuff all these years and never found one. Even looked in record stores in New Orleans.

I've never actually seen this Sugarboy comp in the wild, but it does exist.

https://www.louisianamusicfactory.com/product/sugar-boy-crawford-the-chronological-sugar-boy-crawford-1953-1954/

And I hope the revitalization of the Dew Drop comes to pass. It's been floated a few times in the past without success.

I've been catching up on Lee Dorsey - I don't think I've ever seen his records pop up during any visit to a record store, partly due to their sporadic availability - and I noticed that Elvis Costello's 2006 collaboration with Allen Toussaint is mostly Dorsey's stuff, and the tracks are primarily drawn from two albums that EC listed in his own list of 500 favorites for Vanity Fair. Anyway, great stuff, and it's kind of astonishing that despite a healthy amount of recording activity and a handful of sizable hits, Dorsey turned to auto repair as his main trade just to make a living.

I was super sad to read that about Clarence Henry. I would guess he never got near his fair share of what his records sold. Absolutely love the news of a local cleanup company owner, a fan, volunteering his services, and the insurance deductible. (Obviously, everybody dealing with disastrous damage like this should get similar support, but, welcome to America.)

As a listener, I've never dug beyond "Ain't Got No Home," its sequel song, and "I Don't Know Why," which I have on comps. Have always adored them. I should seek out a good best-of.

This is a good thread! I finally picked up a Huey "Piano" Smith best-of recently, the old Rockin' Pneumonia disc, and it's fantastic listening. It is sadly missing the fabulous "Free, Single, and Disengaged," with its surprisingly wistful hook... which I think is played by a typical small horn section but has always merged together in the lo-fi recording to sound almost like a bassoon to me.

Oh I gotta look up that disc, thanks!
xpost xgau sees Lee Dorsey w The Clash:

Yes He Can Can
Lee Dorsey saunters onto the Palladium stage in cream-colored three-piece suit, chocolate shirt and hankie that match his skin, and low boots of lemony patent leather. This is the kind of man for whom the word dapper was invented. No more than five-six and slender, he dances with a rolling gait that's spry rather than spectacular. After all, he's 55 years old. Anyway: "I guess you heard about my motorcycle accident. I broke this leg"--indicating the left--"in four places. But I refuse to sit down."

I doubt that 10 per cent of this audience even know his name, much less his medical history, although "Holy Cow" and "Do-Re-Mi" and "Ya Ya" and "Working in a Coal Mine" and "Ride Your Pony" all ring bells. Dorsey isn't a legend like the Clash's previous openers, Bo Diddley and Sam & Dave, and if there were any justice he wouldn't need to be, because he's recorded good music right into the '70s, with two classic albums to his credit: Yes We Can (1970 Polydor cutout) and Night People (1977 ABC cutout). Dorsey hasn't appeared in New York since he and the Apollo were in their commercial prime around 1966, but he's completely at ease, lilting through his hits with occasional well-aimed shouts and uttering his "thank you very kindly"s and "heh-heh-heh"s with vaudevillian charm and esprit. Unlike most oldies acts, he's not going through the motions, probably because he's never put himself on the block as an oldies act. His band, four "funky white boys"--Dorsey's description--from New Orleans called Skor, sing way too loud and quite flat on "Holy Cow" but then settle into a pleasing, slightly rockified Meters groove, with drummer Ronnie Arcement's versions of Ziggy Modeliste's impossible accents and crossbeats especially deft. Somebody should bring Dorsey back to this city, preferably with Skor, before 1994.

I should add that the headliners were spectacular. I just figure they'd want me to give the spry its due.

Village Voice, Mar. 17, 1980

Here he checks the 70s albums, and some subsequent collections---man I gotta get to these:

https://www.robertchristgau.com/get_artist.php?name=Lee+Dorsey

setlists from that tour:
https://www.concertarchives.org/concerts/the-clash-lee-dorsey
Cool pic of him w them (linked in case not spozed to paste image)
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/535295105691504657/

Excellent write-up and capsule reviews from xgau.

Re: Huey "Piano" Smith, I would recommend this compilation, and it does have "Free, Single, and Disengaged":

https://www.discogs.com/release/3385873-Huey-Piano-Smith-His-Clowns-Having-A-Good-Time-The-Very-Best-Of-Volume-1

From Rounder:

Legendary New Orleans Musician Dr. John’s Final Studio Album Things Happen That Way
Set for September 23 Release on Rounder Records

Guests Include Willie Nelson, Aaron Neville,
and Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real

...The first single from the album – a haunting and hypnotic new rendition of “I Walk on Guilded Splinters” (which originally appeared on Dr. John’s groundbreaking 1968 debut Gris- Gris) – is released today.
http://music.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lic4OqpAbPS4vDrWAvLkv31NiGI5v9Hm0

Things Happen That Way opens on the delicate surrender of the Willie Nelson-penned “Funny How Time Slips Away,” a track whose soulful harmonies and smoldering horns never overpower the sheer vulnerability of Dr. John’s performance on piano and vocals. A co-conspirator of Rebennack’s for countless years, Nelson shares a warm remembrance that perfectly encapsulates the album’s transportive power: “Dr. John had the most unique musical style and language that would take me to another time and place whenever I heard him play or sing.” Spotlighting his endless ingenuity as a song interpreter, Dr. John also masterfully reimagines Hank Williams’ “Ramblin’ Man” and “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry.” Elsewhere on the album, Aaron Neville joins in for a joyfully brass-heavy take on The Traveling Wilburys’ “End of the Line,” while Willie Nelson lends his balm-like vocals and signature guitar work to a soul-stirring rendition of the traditional gospel song “Gimme That Old Time Religion.”

Though much of Things Happen That Way bears an exquisitely reflective mood, the album also offers up several new uptempo originals from Dr. John: “Holy Water” (a savvy and poignant look back at his early-’60s criminal charge for narcotics and subsequent two-year prison sentence, with backing vocals by Katie Pruitt), “Sleeping Dogs Best Left Alone” (a swinging and self-aware piece that knowingly speaks to the danger in playing with proverbial dynamite), and “Give Myself A Good Talkin’ To”(a world-weary but high-spirited reflection on the vicissitudes of human nature).

With each track once again illuminating his outsize imagination and idiosyncratic yet profoundly insightful storytelling, the album then closes out with a captivating cover of “Guess Things Happen That Way.” In a departure from the buoyant determination of Johnny Cash’s version, Dr. John delivers an aching expression of grief and quiet hope, imbuing every line with so much unvarnished emotion. At turns devastating and triumphant, elegant and raw, with his unexpected passing, this album serves as a glorious farewell from one of the most singular, essential, and infinitely fascinating figures in music history.

The album’s liner notes, penned by Rebennack’s longtime friend, renowned television producer Ken Ehrlich (creator of PBS’ groundbreaking music series Soundstage, and producer of the GRAMMY Awards for four decades) offer the sage observation that Things Happen That Way is “the most personal and intimate journey into his soul that has ever been put on tape.”

On May 8, the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival – now in its 52nd year – will celebrate Dr. John’s vast musical legacy with a tribute concert featuring performances by Irma Thomas, Cyril Neville, Davell Crawford, John Boutté, Ivan Neville, Jon Cleary, and Papa Gros. Last weekend, the festival honored Dr. John with a second line jazz funeral procession gloriously led by the Young Fellaz brass band.

For more information, contact regina dot joskow at rounder.com

Things Happen That Way Track Listing:

Funny How Time Slips Away
Ramblin’ Man
Gimme That Old Time Religion (feat. Willie Nelson)
I Walk On Guilded Splinters (feat. Lukas Nelson & Promise of The Real)
I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry
End Of The Line (feat. Aaron Neville)
Holy Water
Sleeping Dogs Best Left Alone
Give Myself A Good Talkin’ To
Guess Things Happen That Way

I’m eagerly awaiting this, thanks for the update.

Thanks for the update too. I revisited Locked Down recently - excellent album, I regret missing the BAM residency that accompanied it.

Also very happy that New Orleans has officially renamed Robert E. Lee Boulevard as Allen Toussaint Boulevard. (The change had won a unanimous vote in January, and they just finished implementing it recently.)

Toussaint's Austin City Limits episode is reairing this week.

https://acltv.com/

Nice! (And they're even streaming it at that link post-broadcast) Thanks for the tip!

Elvis Costello interview about New Orleans. He just did a tribute to Dave Bartholomew with Dirty Dozen Brass Band @ Jazz Fest

But mostly Costello spoke of Bartholomew, New Orleans music and culture and his excited anticipation of this return.

Let’s talk about Dave Bartholomew. How did you first become aware of him?

Well, the same as with Allen, although Allen started in the late ’50s and Dave started working in the late ’40s. I was aware [of Dave], even if it was via other people doing Fats Domino sounds. I’d heard Fats Domino. I don’t think I was aware of many Dave Bartholomew records growing up in England. I think mostly as I learned more about rock ’n’ roll—in the same way you know Sam Phillips was the man responsible for Elvis Presley and Jerry Lee Lewis—you kind of learned that Dave Bartholomew was the man working the gears behind Fats Domino. All that sound.

And then, little by little, I learned what records he had produced other than those and then I heard his own—a lot of the instrumental records. Basin Street Breakdown [from 1949] is my favorite. I could play that guitar solo. Give me a couple of notes and play them over and over and over and over and over and over and over, over and over and over again. I’m pretty good at that. Going up and down the neck? Not so hot. I couldn’t play you any Eddie Van Halen solos. I’m Basin Street Breakdown, for sure. That’s right in my attitude.

...Dave Bartholomew was one of those people. I don’t know of him producing so many people from outside the city, do you? I don’t think people sought him out in the same way as in the ’70s people did with the next generation—Frankie Miller or Paul McCartney, Robert Palmer [all working with Allen Toussaint].

But it’s as if the stack of records that he made was so influential that a resonance of him—even though some of them were made in 1951—we were still hearing him. We’re still decoding them, and they sound superficially simple. Try playing any of those things and get them to sound as good as they do. You can play the changes, but you won’t get that feel.

And the studio factored into that, Cosimo Matassa’s J&M.

In some ways, New Orleans is more connected to the way in which music is conceived in Kingston [Jamaica] than in Chicago, in that there’s a recognizable disposition in a lot of the music, even though the styles of the producers are so different. But there’s something distinct from the rest of America in the same way as, you know, music from Trinidad is very different to music from Jamaica. As somebody who learned almost everything from records, I puzzle the records out of New Orleans the same way I puzzle the records out of Kingston. “What are they doing?” It’s not just that the beat is different. It’s everything is different. The sound, the approach to sound is different. The approach to harmony is different. The intonation of horns and voices is distinct to cities. And for myself, because I grew up around brass players in a dance band that my dad was with, I can tell you in two seconds whether a record’s made in England or America. I can tell from what town.

https://www.offbeat.com/articles/elvis-costello-talks-back/

Elvis Costello has so much music knowledge and plays with such great musicians, I just wish his music was at all listenable for me.

Ha, otm. And I like to consider myself a fan of sorts, although of course I prefer his earlier work.

I haven't paid much attention to Elvis post-Imperial Bedroom, but I closed out one of the last Jazzfests I attended in 2008 seeing him with Toussaint and it was excellent.

...although his new album's getting rave reviews as a return to vintage form and it left me kinda flat.

By far my favorite EC records came from the classic years (1977-1986). I still like certain things after that, but it's like comparing McCartney's solo/Wings stuff with the Beatles in that there's just no comparison, in terms of quality, consistency, innovation, influence, etc.

The stuff he did with Toussaint is very enjoyable, but it also leans heavily on Toussaint's work. (EC's two favorite Lee Dorsey albums in particular.) The album they made together only has a few originals on it IIRC, but to be fair, they've collaborated on a few things before like "Deep Dark Truthful Mirror" from Spike (which is nice). And yes, I'm one of those who really liked the new album. The comparisons to his earliest work feel a little misleading - it's more rocking, but I wouldn't mistake it for older songs. Like Hey Clockface had a few excellent rockers on there that feel more apiece, it's just that this time around he did an album focused of them instead of just a few cuts alongside a lot of experiments.

RIP Clarence Frogman Henry at 87...of "Ain't Got No Home" fame

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/09/arts/music/clarence-henry-dead.html

One year at Jazzfest Frogman was trying to get the crowd to sing along to “You Always Hurt The One You Love” and heckling the frat boys/sorority babes in the front rows (probably staking their spot for Jimmy Buffett or somebody later): “You don’t even know this song! What are you doing up here?”

Interesting. I saw him at Jazzfest too but only remember those distinctive ways he sang the various verses of his hit