This is actually "the Ernie K-Doe Official Louisiana Music Hall Of
Fame Induction video", but the bulk of it consists of K-Doe performing a
couple of songs (including "Mother-in-Law") at Jazz Fest, sometime
during the 1980s. The sign in the background ("Schlitz Welcomes You to
the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival") may be quaint, but the
performance hot.
According to the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame,
the video was "first presented at his Mother-in-Law Lounge in NOLA.
8-2-2009.... The closing footage is from Ernie and Antoinette's
appearance in the movie 'Happy, Now & Then'."
Kermit Ruffins says he has cut a deal to lease the former home of Ernie K-Doe’s Mother-in-Law Lounge.
David Grunfeld / The Times-PicayuneKermit Ruffins, seen here at Bullet's, already leases Sidney's Saloon in Treme. He plans to open a second Treme bar in the old Mother-in-Law Lounge.
Ruffins and the building’s owner have agreed on terms for a longterm lease and expect to sign paperwork by early next week, Ruffins said. He hopes to open by Mardi Gras.
“I jumped on it before anyone else did,” he said Thursday.
Ruffins has a month-to-month lease on the nearby Sidney’s Saloon, where he sometimes performs. He is a hands-off owner. He books the occasional band, but mostly leaves the day-to-day operation to a manager.
He anticipates a similar arrangement at his new bar. “I’m going to have as much live music as I can,” he said.
The ramshackle barroom at 1500 North Claiborne Avenue served as the headquarters for rhythm & blues eccentric Ernie K-Doe, purveyor of the hit “Mother-in-Law.” After K-Doe’s death in 2001, his widow, Antoinette, operated the Mother-in-Law Lounge as a shrine to her late husband – complete with a life-size mannequin she dressed in the real K-Doe’s clothes – and quasi-community center for an assortment of Treme old-timers and young, bohemian musicians.
Antoinette died of a heart attack on Mardi Gras morning 2009. Her daughter Betty Fox, manager of an auto-parts store in Memphis, Tenn., moved to New Orleans and took over the Mother-in-Law Lounge. But she struggled with various financial and logistical challenges, cars crashing into the front door, and the fact that she wasn’t her irrepressible mother.
“The only person who could run Ernie K-Doe’s Mother-in-Law Lounge was Antoinette K-Doe,” Fox said in December. “I did all I could do. I’m exhausted. It’s too stressful.”
She closed the Lounge after a Dec. 12 farewell show, and cleared out the remaining K-Doe memorabilia.
Ruffins says he has not yet settled on a name for the new enterprise. He’s unsure if it will include the words “Mother-in-Law.”
Michael DeMocker / The Times-PicayuneMourners line up outside Ernie K-Doe's Mother-in-Law Lounge in February 2009 to pay their respects to Antoinette K-Doe. Kermit Ruffins says he wants to preserve the exterior murals by artist Daniel Fuselier.
Fueled by Antoinette K-Doe’s legendary red beans and rice, artist Daniel Fuselier worked off-and-on for seven years to cover the exterior of the two-story building with dozens of vibrant, larger-than-life renderings, including cartoonish portraits of the K-Does. Regardless of what Ruffins names the new bar, he intends to leave the murals in place.
“I can’t mess up that beautiful artwork,” he said. “The outside is going to stay the same.”
Jon Cleary is a pianist/keyboardist based in New Orleans. Originally from England, Cleary developed an early passion for New Orleans music. He has backed up many NOLA legends including Ernie K-Doe and Snooks Eaglin . He has also been a member ofBonnie Raitt’s band. He also leads his own band, Jon Cleary and the Absolute Monster Gentlemen. He’s also very busy.
Jon Cleary onstage doing what he does best. (Photo Credit: JonCleary.com)
Mother in law Lounge in New Orleans is finally closing - for real.
The chance of seeing Ernie K-Doe at Jazzfest was a prime reason for me going to New Orleans for the first time in 1989, and in subsequent years up to his death in 2001. I went to the Lounge several times and it's sad that it is shutting down. It was a shrine to Ernie, with dozens of rather tacky K-Doe souvenirs, historic photos and his life sized mannequin taking pride of place. Under Antoinette K-Doe's energetic management it became quite a trendy night spot for a while, but once she died the end of the Lounge was an inevitability. I'm glad I and other Woodies made a pilgrimage there during out Stompin' trip in the spring.
In homage to Ernie and the Mother In law Lounge, here are some of the K-Doe related photos I've taken over the years. First, here's K-Doe in typical slightly dishevelled pose at Jazzfest in 1989.
Betty Fox, the daughter of Antoinette K-Doe, announced on her Facebook page that she is closing down Ernie K-Doe's Mother-In-Law Lounge for good. The colorful bar at 1500 N. Claiborne in Treme has been difficult for Fox to maintain since Antoinette died on Mardi Gras Day, 2009. Fox was hospitalized March 1 after a car crashed into the bar, damaging the front door and leaving her "physically and emotionally tired of doing this. I'm grieving, too. I'm losing weight. I've been living upstairs with no plumbing, or electricity, and mold in the room for a year and a half."
"I know a lot of people might not understand," she said. "But my mother and K-Doe been gone, and each one of us has our own memory of them. This is just a building."
Fox plans to hold the last in a series of garage sales of K-Doe and Antoinette memorabilia as well as some of the bar's fixtures on July 10. Though she is behind in the rent and the building has suffered structural and mold damage, Fox holds out hope that the Mother-In-Law could be turned into a museum, an eventuality that seems unlikely without a serious financial intervention.
Ernie K-Doe (Born Ernest Kador) February 22, 1936 – July 5, 2001
New Orleans born, Ernie K-Doe was best known for his huge #1 hit, “Mother-In-Law,” released in 1961. A colorful performer, K-Doe was a popular draw in and around Louisiana for many years. During the ’80s, K-Doe hosted a popular New Orleans radio program. Ernie K-Doe passed away in 1989 at the age of 65.
Antoinette K-Doe, the irrepressible widow of rhythm & blues singer Ernie K-Doe who transformed the Mother-in-Law Lounge into a living shrine and community center, died early Tuesday after suffering a massive heart attack. She was 66.
"It was her personal mission to keep his memory alive," said Ben Sandmel, who is writing a biography of Ernie K-Doe. "But she also did so much for the community. It's a huge loss for the whole musicians' community of New Orleans."
Born Antoinette Dorsey, Mrs. K-Doe was a cousin of rhythm & blues singer Lee Dorsey. She had known Ernie K-Doe for many years before they became a couple around 1990.
At the time, the singer's best days were far behind him. After a string of hits in the early 1960s, most notably "Mother-in-Law," his career, and life bottomed out. By sheer force of will, she helped him return to the stage and transform himself into an icon of eclectic New Orleans. The couple married in 1994.
"She had him on a short leash," Sandmel said. "She cleaned him up and opened the lounge to give him a place to play."
Ernie K-Doe died in 2001. But thanks to his wife, he maintained a schedule of public appearances via a life-size, fully costumed, look-alike mannequin. Mrs. K-Doe referred to the mannequin as "Ernie."
As the mother hen of the Mother-in-Law Lounge, she presided over one of the city's most diverse, funky-but-chic watering holes. With its vibrant, larger-than-life exterior murals and adjoining gardens, the Lounge stood out on an otherwise rough stretch of North Claiborne Avenue.
As the Ernie mannequin looked on from its corner throne, Mrs. K-Doe served a mix of neighborhood regulars and hipsters from across the city. The Lounge was a favorite haunt of such non-traditional musicians as Mr. Quintron, the Bywater avant-garde keyboardist, inventor and marching band impresario.
The Lounge badly flooded in the wake of Hurricane Katrina's levee breaches. In advance of the floodwaters, Mrs. K-Doe dismantled the mannequin, stored the pieces in plastic bags, and stowed them in an upstairs closet. In the months after the storm, she revived the Lounge with the aid of an army of volunteers and financial support from contemporary R&B star Usher.
Mrs. K-Doe suffered a minor heart attack during Mardi Gras 2008, but recovered. On Thursday, she rode in the Muses parade with the Ernie mannequin. She served as the honorary queen of the Cameltoe Ladysteppers marching organization.
Today she had planned to don the traditional Baby Doll costume and parade through the streets of Treme before returning to the lounge for what is always a busy day. She helped revive the tradition of the Baby Dolls marching organization, and was happy to see others take up the mantle.
Michelle Longino, a founder of the Bayou Steppers Social Aid and Pleasure Club, received Mrs. K-Doe's blessing to costume as a Baby Doll and come out with Mardi Gras Indian Big Chief Monk Boudreaux on Mardi Gras morning.
"She told us that we needed to be proper Baby Dolls, not nasty Baby Dolls," Longino said. "Today we're going to call ourselves the Antoinette K-Doe Baby Dolls in her honor."
Around 3 a.m. Mardi Gras morning, Mrs. K-Doe awoke in her apartment above the Mother-in-Law Lounge and complained of feeling hot, said Gary Hughes, the husband of her adopted daughter, Jackie Coleman. She went downstairs and apparently suffered a heart attack on a sofa in the lounge.
Hughes, who was staying in the apartment at the time, said paramedics arrived quickly but could not revive Mrs. K-Doe.
Today's festivities at the Mother-in-Law Lounge will be in her honor.
"Mardi Gras was her holiday," Hughes said. "She loved Mardi Gras. We're going to run the lounge as if she was here and do it up this one last time for her."
Before the end of the year is upon us, there's time for one more installment on a New Orleans female R&B artist. One of my favorite New Orleans vocalists,Merry Clayton(whose birthday will be here soon), is a special case for several reasons. While she has roots in the city, she has remained an outsider during the course of her career, never recording there. The only work she has done with a New Orleans producer that I know of was when she sang back-up on Allen Toussaint's first solo album, which was cut in LA. Having anaccomplished career spanning over four decades, Clayton has worked with some of the biggest names in the music business and earned their respect, but has never realized the kind of success that would make her name instantly recognizable to the general public. Of course, had that been the case, you wouldn't be reading about her here. . . .
Some albums stun us slow, taking us more like the rising heat of a great kiss than a frying pan to the head. Until you let 'em in, let 'em have their way with you a bit, you may not realize what you're holding. In many respects, this description fits the entire career of Grayson Capps but never more so than Rott 'N' Roll (Hyena Records), a singer-songwriter driven future classic that roasts one with deliberate, charcoal intensity. The first Capps album credited to Grayson and his longtime salt of the earth band, The Stumpknockers, hangs together with the post-journeyman mastery of Creedence Clearwater Revival's Cosmo's Factory or John Prine's Bruised Orange, with the added virtue of greater emotional heft than either of those revered records and the palpable embrace of a delightful group chemistry that infuses and elevates every little element.
Full of $5 dollar whores, cornbread, sock monkeys and folks caught forever in shadow, Rott 'N' Roll firmly establishes Capps as one of the preeminent musical blacksmiths currently swinging a hammer.
If you ever make it to New Orleans, we highly recommend you visit the Mother-in-Law Lounge, the former home of and now tribute to Ernie K-Doe. Ernie's widow Antoinette K-Doetells the story of how she waited out Katrina for days in the second floor of the lounge before she got airlifted out of the building still flooded in six feet of water, but you wouldn't know it from seeing the new tiki bar in the back and the Christmas decorations alight.
Kermit Ruffins just released a single, "Christmas Time Is Here". It is a tease for a full length Christmas record coming in late 2009. Pick it up on your favorite digital platform, or order it online from http://www.basinstreetrecords.com/.
A simple countdown: "One, two / You know what to do." Nimble fingers glissando down the keys and launch into New Orleans-flavored funk. This pyrotechnic pianist sings, too, with just the right mix of mellow and sharp in his voice, reinventing King Floyd's 1971 soul classic "Groove Me." While the original bumped along at a mid-tempo pace, Jon Cleary sets the song on fire.
I received Sonny Landreth’s new album, Beyond the Reach, with mixed emotions. On one hand, it’s great to see Landreth keeping company with such acknowledged guitar heavyweights as Eric Clapton and Mark Knopfler, and singers including Jimmy Buffett and Vince Gill, but there’s something about the sleek, stripped down sound of his guitar riding a bass and drums that’s hard to improve upon.
Had dinner with a friend the other night and we got around to talking about George Porter who in my opinion is one of the funkiest bass players alive. I’ve had a love affair with his playing for a long time, not to say I haven’t enjoyed watching him play too. My friend was in New Orleans recently working on a music project where George Porter was the bass player. I have to admit I was extremely jealous. It’s been some time since I’ve seen him perform, and I’ve never been in a recording session with him.
Well crap, looks like Antigravity just printed their "record store issue" about a month after I started working on mine, got frustrated and got lazy. Whatever, I think I can outdo them.
When visiting other places I always google for some good guide of where I should shop for music in the area and often I come up empty-handed. Well, it turns out New Orleans actually already has a few of these, but some are out of date or biased. Well, I'll be biased too, but as long as I update this blog I'll update this page. Not that I know how long I'll update this blog.
In the self-proclaimed music capitol of the world there seems to be no shortage of musicians performing and interacting together in Austin, Texas. But when one music capitol of the world is invaded by musicians from another music capitol of the world (say, New Orleans for example), it’s safe to bet you’ll see some firepower. Or more aptly, funkpower as was displayed over the weekend at FunkFest III at the Parish on 6th Street in downtown Austin. Two nights of hard-hitting raw funk that leaned heavy on the grooves of today’s Austin and New Orleans best in funk brass and jam music including Stanton Moore Trio, The Greyhounds ftr Topaz, Flyjack and T-Bird & The Breaks. Headlining FunkFest III Saturday night was New Orleans’ new brand of horn heavy sounds, Bonerama who by all accounts either have a lot of trombones in the band or spend too much time online.
Over one hundred years after the Crescent City had given the world cornetist and jazz pioneer Buddy Bolden kicking off an amazing string of brass legends from Louis Armstrong to Wynton Marsalis to Terence Blanchard, another ground-breaking trumpet player from this storied city has emerged in the last few years. His name is Christian Scott.
New Orleans is known as the birthplace of jazz, an honor the city prides itself in. From dim lit jazz clubs lining the city streets to its annual Jazz and Heritage Festival, New Orleans is a great American music city. Jazz isn’t the only music being created in the Big Easy though. Many music clubs and venues offer an eclectic mix of blues, gospel, hip hop, rock and more.
The Morning 40 Federation was born and bred in New Orleans' Ninth Ward neighborhood, formed in 1997 as a drunken quasi-dare by Josh Cohen and Space Rickshaw, amateur saxophonist and trombonist, respectively. They hung the name on their rough assemblage of amateur musicians/pro-drinkers as a sardonic admission of non-guilt. They didn't know how their way around their instruments ("It sounded like I was strangling a goose," Cohen says of his first forays into the wild world of alto sax), and their first gigs took place at house parties and off-night in bars like the Hi Ho Lounge, were more like sweaty demolition derbies soundtracked by some righteous feedback than actual concerts.
But despite their best intentions, the 40s began to develop honest-to-goodness chops. Their sound -- a mutant hybrid of punk, jazz and what New Orleans old-timers call "fonk" - coalesced. Their gigs got sharper without losing their anything-goes, gang-of-stinky-swamp-things onstage vibe, and they acquired new members: guitarist Bailey Smith was recruited in a Decatur Street dive his first night in town; guitarist Ryan Scully was shanghaied pirate-style from a life of playing cosmic country music, And by God, you could DANCE to their music, thanks to Mike Andrepont and Steve Calandra's booze stumblin' rhythm section.
But it was their songs that put 'em over. The 40s specialized in hilarious chronicles of boozy camaraderie, tales of the assorted noble lowlifes, space cadets and other crazies that populate the parallel universe version of New Orleans nightlife far off the beaten tourist path. Two self-produced CD's - 2000's YOUR MY BROTHER and 2002's TRICK NASTY started racking up regional awards, and in 2004, the band signed with M80 and released the self-titled MORNING 40 FEDERATION.
But TICONDEROGA is their dirty masterpiece. Recorded last summer with Mark Bingham (R.E.M.) at his Piety Street Studios in the Ninth Ward, it's is a vivid snapshot of the Morning 40s world. From the drunken prom slow jam "Washing Machine" to the bubblegum funk of "Corkscrew," it's a raucous party record AND a bittersweet pre-Katrina time capsule, an album that preserves a New Orleans that was and -- god willing and the levees don't bust (again) -- might be again. The Morning 40 Federation are hard at work helping to rebuild New Orleans by not giving up on it, by continuing to live and to work there, and by getting loaded and shouting boozy, noisy love songs in its honor. On their behalf, we invite you to shout along with them.
"Hold On, Help Is On the Way" (Davis/Tyler/Parker) G. Davis & R. Tyler, Parlo 102, 1966"Hold On, Help Is On the Way" has long been on my short list of favorite instrumentals from New Orleans - not funk, just a classy, intensely hip mover and groover. I'd even venture to say it's one of the great R&B instrumentals, period. On it,George Davisgets a chance to let his guitar chops run free, at least for a little over two minutes of concentrated bliss. In the 1960s, his signature licks and solos graced a number of New Orleans records - the most well-known of which was Robert Parker's"Barefootin'". But, this virtuoso single is his only known solo outing from the old days. He shied away from being the front man, not even using his full name on the record, and giving his partner and friend, Red Tyler, co-billing on the A-side, though Red only had a supporting role on sax. Still, it was really George's show.
Clint Maedgen is a busy man. The impresario behind the Brechtian New Orleans musical theater group The New Orleans Bingo! Show is also the front man for his own groups, a frequent collaborator with Morning 40 Federation, and newest full-time member of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band. He has become one of the central figures in Voodoo Fest, where the Bingo! Parlour tent show became Voodoo's signature venue last year. This tent was the centerpiece of an alternative midway where the Maedgen's Barnum-esque genius took full flower. It was a constant churn of trapeze artists, burlesque performers, clown acts, a ringmaster deft at inducing audience participation, and, of course, Maedgen's trademark bingo games. The music in the Bingo! Parlour was also some of the most intense. The Zydepunks conjured a raucous dance party, Quintron played the best set I've ever heard from him, and Morning 40 Federation created absolute pandemonium as fans sang along to the lurching, drunken choruses of the band's songs and crowd surfed off the stage.
"Mother-In-Law" is going to be familiar to anyone who listened to pop radio in the years just preceding the British Invasion and a few who came of age a little afterwards. If you don't know it, well, it's really one of those zany party tunes that were popular around that time, like "Charlie Brown" and "Monster Mash."
I remember years ago attending a Smithsonian Institute Folklife Festival in Washington which was devoted in part to the culture of Louisiana and New Orleans. It was chance to hear some blues like the late Boogie Bill Webb as well as it was my first exposure to the Mardi Gras Indian tradition other than the recordings of The Wild Magnolias and The Wild Tchoupitoulas, as members talked about and demonstrated the making of a costume as well as the various traditions involved. At the store where they sold items related to the Festival was a book of black and white photographs, Spirit World: Pattern in the Expressive Folk Culture of African-American New Orleans, It was essentially a catalogue of one of his exhibits documenting aspects of the cultural life and communities of New Orleans that was totally new to me, such as spiritual churches, and I slowly began to understand the interrelationship between the churches, the Indians, the music and other interrelated aspects that were the foundation for the New Orleans Rhythm and Blues Music that I loved (well I still d0). The book was republished by the Louisiana print house, Pelican, and is readily available.
During a 2006 dinner at Antoine's, producers of the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival discussed staging a Louisiana-themed festival in London. Philip Anschutz, the billionaire owner of Jazzfest co-producer AEG Live, loved the idea.
Two years later, the overseas Festival New Orleans is a reality.
Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, Kermit Ruffins, the Rebirth Brass Band, BeauSoleil, Buckwheat Zydeco, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux and John Mooney & Bluesiana are booked for the free festival Oct. 24-25 at The O2, a massive entertainment complex owned by AEG and situated along the Thames River in London.
When it comes to embodying the spirit of classic New Orleans entertainment, you'd be hard pressed to come up with a more fitting tribute than the girls of Fleur de Tease. Harkening back to the golden era of Bourbon Street theatre, this vaudville cum burlesque troupe plays sexy with a wink. Complete with a house magician, one very lucky MC, and trunkloads of fanciful props and costumes, these spirited performers deliver expertly choreographed routines that whimsically address such complex themes as bullfighting and extraterrestrial invasion.
The Iguanas' "Plastic Silver 9 Volt Heart" was the best local album of 2003, and among the best of the past decade. It redefined the Iguanas as the New Orleans/Tex-Mex equivalent of Wilco, a roots music ensemble that skillfully and subtly draws on a broad palette of sound.
In the ensuing five years, the Iguanas endured considerable turmoil both individually and collectively. Hurricane Katrina displaced the musicians to Austin, Texas, where they formed the Texiles with fellow "Texas exiles." All eventually returned to New Orleans, but not to the band. In late 2006, after more than 15 years together, saxophonist Derek Huston and the Iguanas parted ways under less than amicable circumstances.
Some say you can never have too much of a good thing, and if that's true, then the Down by the Riverside Tour featuring the Blind Boys of Alabama and the Preservation Hall Jazz Band of New Orleans is the proof. A couple sat down next to me and the man looked at his program and said to his wife, "Oh this is gonna be good. I didn't realize what this was!" He was probably a Lincoln Center season ticket holder in for a pleasant surprise.
As the house lights went down four members: Mark Braud (trumpet), Ben Jaffe (tuba), Rickie Monie (piano) and Joseph Lastie, Jr. (drums) of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band walked onto the stage. As the stellar musicians launched into "Bourbon St. Parade," we were all instantly transported down to the funky metropolis of New Orleans. The traditional Dixieland jazz instruments melded together to form a sound that reminded me of sticky weather, crawfish and Mardi Gras. Clarinetist Charlie Gabriel came out next, and then trombonist Frank Demond, who has been a member of the band for over forty years and was wearing some nice bright red socks. They reminded me of a bluegrass combo in the way they moved around each other, the instruments weaving in and out of the fabric of the tune. This was no mountain breakdown, however. This was Southern fried jazz at its finest. The big upright bass player, Walter Payton, father of trumpeter Nicholas Payton, came out next to lead the band in "Tailgate Ramble." The third tune of the evening was "Sugar Blues," which had trumpeter Braud showing off a bit at the front of the stage with the mute, mimicking vocal sounds, teasing the old Tin Pan Alley tune "Ain't She Sweet" and even drawing some challenges from his band members. After one particularly dazzling run, someone behind him onstage shouted out, off-mic, "Betcha' can't do that backwards!" and much to the delight of the crowd, Braud played the line in reverse, garnering much applause and laughter.
