Watch: The Tin Men, New Orleans, Washboard, Sousaphone & Guitar Trio (via Times-Pic)

Watch as The Tin Men, a New Orleans trio featuring Washboard Chaz Leary on washboard and percussion, Matt Perrine on Sousaphone and Alex McMurray on resophonic guitar, plays at the dba nightclub on Frenchmen Street.

Times-Pic's Mardi Gras Song of the Week: Al "Carnival Time" Johnson's signature classic

 

Carnival season officially began on Twelfth Night, January 6. But for many, the real festivities kick off at Krewe du Vieux, the salacious, satirical first parade of the season, which reveled in ribaldry this past weekend. So, as they say – game on!

Every Tuesday from now until Mardi Gras Day, we’ll be posting a different Carnival classic here on NOLA.com. To kick things off, here’s Al “Carnival Time” Johnson’s (king of Krewe du Vieux 2005) wonderfully weird signature tune, first released in 1960. 

Interestingly enough, when Ric Records first pressed the single, it didn’t immediately become the Mardi Gras anthem it is today; Minit Records’ latest release, Jessie Hill’s “Ooh Poo Pah Doo” overshadowed it in sales and popularity.

“It’s Carnival Time” boasts a joyful and buoyant piano groove; it also features some of the oddest lyrics to come out of New Orleans’ golden age of R&B, to wit: “The Green Room is smokin’ and the Plaza’s burning down/throw my baby out the window and let the joint burn down/ all because it’s Carnival time.” 

The horn section boasted an all-star cast, including Lee Allen and James Rivers; according to New Orleans music historian Jeff Hannusch, Mac Rebennack (and not Al) plays piano on the session that was eventually released.

“Ooh Poo Pah Doo” may have won the day fifty years ago, and it remains one of New Orleans’ finest (and also lyrically, strangest) R&B classics. But you can’t keep a good song down, and if you don’t hear “It’s Carnival Time” at least eight million times in the streets, clubs and shop of New Orleans during January and February, well, you might need to clean your ears.

Here's Al "Carnival Time" Johnson's new Super Bowl-specific version of his classic hit:

 

RIP: Bob French

Bob French, longtime Original Tuxedo Jazz Band leader and WWOZ deejay, has died

By Keith Spera, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

 

Bob French, the longtime leader and drummer of the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band and an outspoken, at times controversial, WWOZ-FM deejay, died on Monday, Nov. 12, after a long illness. He was 74.

Mr. French last performed with the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band in the summer of 2011. Afflicted with dementia and suffering from diabetes-related complications, he then moved into an assisted-living facility.

Mr. French grew up immersed in the traditional sounds of New Orleans. His father, banjo player Albert "Papa" French, took over the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band in the 1950s after the death of Oscar "Papa" Celestin, who founded the group in 1910.

As a young man, Mr. French rejected his father's music in favor of rhythm and blues. His first gig in 1954 included Art and Charles Neville and piano wizard James Booker. One day, Papa French recruited his son to fill in for the Original Tuxedo's ailing drummer. Bob French was so mortified by his sloppy performance that he committed himself to a proper study of traditional New Orleans jazz.

When Papa French died in 1977, his son took over the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band. Under Bob French’s leadership, the band expanded its repertoire during an itinerant existence around town. He restored the Original Tuxedo to Bourbon Street in 2009 via a Monday night residency at Irvin Mayfield's Jazz Playhouse in the Royal Sonesta Hotel. That he would work at a club owned by Mayfield, whom Mr. French occasionally bashed on the airwaves, caught some observers by surprise. "I love to play music, and I love money," Mr. French said by way of explanation. "And I get both of them there."
After his retirement in 2011, his nephew, Gerald French, took over the drum chair and leadership of the band.

His blunt talk, strong opinions and force of personality earned him detractors; an altercation with a fellow WWOZ deejay reportedly got him booted off the air. But he also had his fans, including Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis. Both appeared on Mr. French’s 2007 CD, "Marsalis Music Honors Bob French," issued by Marsalis' namesake record label. Both stars also joined him for a performance in the Jazz Tent at that year’s New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival presented by Shell.
Thanks to Connick's and Marsalis' involvement, that CD was the most prominent of Mr. French’s 50-year career. It was smartly produced and played, beautifully packaged and distributed around the globe. Across 11 tracks, the drummer and his band revisited well-traveled standards, including "When the Saints Go Marching In," which Mr. French generally declined to perform onstage.

In the fall of 2006, Marsalis served as guest editor of the glossy jazz magazine DownBeat, and put Mr. French on the cover. It was a rare turn in the national spotlight for a musician who was more familiar with the six sets a night, six nights a week grind. He spent years at the now-defunct Crazy Shirley's at the corner of Bourbon and St. Peter streets in the French Quarter, where patrons included a young Quint Davis, the future producer of Jazz Fest.

As a bandleader, Mr. French took his father's lessons to heart: Charge a higher fee than competitors. Dress sharp. Most important, be on time. None of his father's rules apparently forbade drinking on the job, as Mr. French liked to sip between songs.
"I'm not an alcoholic," he sometimes joked. "I'm a drunk. There's a difference."
From behind his drums, Mr. French kept a watchful eye. He did not permit fans to videotape his shows, and he did not tolerate musicians who made mistakes.
After Hurricane Katrina, he used his position at WWOZ as a bully pulpit to berate elected officials he believed let the city down. Both on air and onstage, he returned to similar themes. "In God we trust, all others pay cash" was a favorite expression. He often referenced red beans as an indicator of his economic status or as an inducement for fans to buy CDs.

His radio vocabulary was much milder than his off-air speech, which he peppered with f-bombs in all their permutations. His broadcasts functioned like a live-action Blackberry. He'd address the likes of Charmaine Neville or Dr. John over the airways: "I need a phone number. Call me back. It's important."

During one two hour-session on the air in the summer of 2007, he lobbied former WWOZ deejay Michael "Mr. Jazz" Gourrier for a free lunch; expounded on singer Tricia "Sista Teedy" Boutte's sore throat and good looks; chatted with in-studio guests Cyril and Gaynielle Neville; commented on the romantic limitations of advancing age; bashed the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Mayor Ray Nagin; and spun a diverse program of mostly traditional, mostly local, jazz. His radio playlists favored the likes of Louis Armstrong, Dr. John, trumpeter Lionel Ferbos, pianist-composer Matt Lemmler, hot jazz singer Ingrid Lucia.

"This show gives me the chance to play what I think is cool," Mr. French once said. "Some people call and say, 'You're not playing any traditional jazz.' Well, it's my show. I can do whatever the f--- I want.' "

Mr. French could sometimes work against himself. During a Los Angeles taping of the now-defunct NBC-TV show "Studio 60 On the Sunset Strip,” he ran afoul of the show’s producers. He was cut from the scene that featured Troy "Trombone Shorty" Andrews and other New Orleanians.

In the mid-2000s, the Original Tuxedo Jazz Band’s Monday night residency bounced around to several clubs, including Donna's, Ray's Boom Boom Room, Cafe Brasil and d.b.a., after his relationship with each club’s proprietor soured.
Privately, Jazz Fest staffers complained about his demands, attitude and bluster. He was not surprised. "I cuss them out," he once said. "I'm not afraid of Quint. I have to fight for every dollar I get.

"(Losing) one gig is not going to hurt me. Two gigs is not going to hurt me. I'm older now. Thank God I get a check every month from Uncle Sam and from the musicians' union. I live alone. I can cook a pot of red beans and eat off of it for three days.
"I don't have to kiss nobody's ass. I'm at the point in my life where I can do what I want. All my children are married and gone, and I'm home alone. When I've eaten, everybody has eaten."

Of his tenure at WWOZ, he said, "I do a lot I'm not supposed to do, but nobody stops me. I think it's good that somebody can do something that's not automatic. I'm not a robot; I'm a human being. And I've always been opinionated. Ask both of my ex-wives."

RIP: James "Sugar Boy" Crawford

James 'Sugar Boy' Crawford, New Orleans rhythm & blues singer of 'Jock-A-Mo,' dies at 77

By Keith Spera, The Times-Picayune 

 

James “Sugar Boy” Crawford, the New Orleans rhythm & blues singer who wrote and recorded the enduring Mardi Gras standard “Jock-A-Mo,” died early Saturday while under hospice care following a brief illness. He was 77.

Keith I. Marszalek / NOLA.comJames

“Jock-A-Mo” borrowed its lyrics from age-old Mardi Gras Indian chants. It was later remade by the Dixie Cups as “Iko Iko.” Artists as diverse as Dr. John, the Grateful Dead and Cyndi Lauper also rendered variations. 

Mr. Crawford’s own career came to a premature end following a police beating in 1963. Only in recent years did he return to the stage, and then only occasionally.

Dubbed “Sugar Boy” as a child, Mr. Crawford grew up around LaSalle Street. He played trombone while attending Booker T. Washington High School. He also formed a rhythm & blues band that deejay Dr. Daddy-O dubbed the Chapaka Shawee, after one of the band's instrumentals. The group performed in local clubs and released a single on Aladdin Records.

Leonard Chess, co-founder of Chess Records, happened to hear the Chapaka Shawee at radio station WMRY while in New Orleans. He made what was purportedly an audition tape of the group.

“The man paid me $5, and I went and bought some wine and red beans,” Mr. Crawford recalled for The Times-Picayune’s Sheila Stroup this spring.

 

 

Weeks later, a disc jockey at the station presented Crawford with a 78 rpm record of “I Don't Know What I’ll Do.” It was manufactured from the audition tape and credited to Sugar Boy & His Cane Cutters.

In November 1953, at age 19, Mr. Crawford recorded his composition “Jock-A-Mo” at Cosimo Matassa’s J&M Studio on North Rampart Street, with a band that included Snooks Eaglin on guitar. He did not know what the lyrics meant. 

“It was just a couple of Indian chants I put together and made a song out of them,” he said.
In a 2002 interview with OffBeat magazine, Mr. Crawford said he actually sang "Chock-a-Mo." But Leonard Chess, listening to the recording in Chicago, heard "Jock-A-Mo" and designated that as the title.
Released on the Chess subsidiary Checker Records, "Jock-A-Mo" was a hit during the 1954 Carnival season and a boon to Mr. Crawford’s career. He became popular on the fraternity circuit at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, and toured around the country, even though he was too young to perform in venues where alcohol was served.

“I was so young, they had to send my money home to my people,” he said. "They had to stop serving liquor when I performed." 

Over the next decade, he recorded for various labels, including Imperial Records, releasing such singles as "I Bowed on My Knees,” “You Gave Me Love,” "Morning Star" and "She's Gotta Wobble (When She Walks)." 

But in 1963, his career, and life, took a tragic turn. En route to a show in Monroe with his band, he was stopped by police and badly pistol-whipped. 

"The sheriff in Columbia called ahead, and they had a roadblock set up for me,” he recalled. "It was the time of the Freedom Riders, and the police jumped on me and cracked my skull." 

Joe "Cool Davis" and James "Sugar Boy" Crawford sing Gospel Local Gospel legend Joe "Cool" Davis and James "Sugar Boy" Crawford, who wrote and recorded "Jockamo" shared the Gospel Tent stage on May 6, 2012 at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Presented By Shell. They performed separately but share a little music here during their portrait session in Joe's apartment. 

 

The beating left Mr. Crawford in a coma. A metal plate replaced part of his badly damaged skull. When he awoke, he had lost much of his memory. “I had a brain injury, and it took me two years to come back,” he said. “I had to learn how to walk, talk, play the piano, everything.

“I don't have to hear people talk about those times. I lived them.” 

He briefly attempted a comeback, but was discouraged by what he perceived as his diminished talent. He subsequently retired from rhythm & blues. For decades, he confined his singing to the church. 

He went to trade school and became a building engineer. For several years he maintained the Masonic Temple building on St. Charles Avenue. Later, he owned and operated C&C Locksmith, and lived in Gentilly. After sorting out the publishing rights to his old catalog, he earned royalties whenever "Jock-A-Mo" or one of its derivatives turned up in movies or commercials, such as when the Belle Stars’ recording of “Iko Iko" appeared on the "Rain Man" soundtrack. 

It was his grandson, the pianist and singer Davell Crawford, who coaxed Mr. Crawford out of retirement. He appeared on Davell’s 1995 CD “Let Them Talk,” and subsequently joined his grandson onstage, including at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. 

In recent years, those appearances became more frequent. Mr. Crawford guested with gospel singer Jo “Cool” Davis as recently as the 2012 Jazz Fest.

Mr. Crawford also taped scenes with Davell for an episode of the upcoming third season of HBO’s “Treme.”
"Jock-A-Mo," both the song and the phrase, is ingrained in the local consciousness. Dr. John, who originally recorded the song for his 1972 album "Dr. John's Gumbo," performed it during halftime of the 2008 NBA Allstar Game in New Orleans. The Abita Brewing Company named one of its beers Jockamo IPA.

RIP Uncle Lionel Batiste, Treme Brass Band bass drummer

By Keith Spera, The Times-Picayune 
 

"Uncle" Lionel Batiste, the Treme Brass Band’s longtime bass drummer and a beloved, dapper character who reveled in charming women of all ages on the dance floor, died early Sunday at Ochsner Baptist Medical Center after a brief battle with cancer. He was 80.

Mr. Batiste was an iconic figure in the brass band community and the larger world of New Orleans music. With his omnipresent sunglasses, a wristwatch worn across his hand, and his kazoo, he literally moved to the beat of his own drum. 

Read the full Times-Pic obituary HERE

NY Times Obit HERE

Kermit Ruffins to lease former site of Mother-in-Law Lounge

By Keith Spera, The Times-Picayune

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.”

© 2011 NOLA.com. All rights reserved.

Dr. John a deserving Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee

By Keith Spera, The Times-Picayune

He’s in the right place, at the right time. Mac “Dr. John” Rebennack, an icon of New Orleans music in all its permutations for five decades, is among the 2011 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees.

Jennifer Zdon / Times-Picayune archiveMac "Dr. John" Rebennack is bound for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

He’ll be inducted in the Hall of Fame’s performer category alongside Neil Diamond, Alice Cooper, Tom Waits and Darlene Love at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City on March 14.

With his induction, Malcolm “Mac” John Rebennack Jr. joins a relatively short and prestigious list of New Orleans honorees. He is only the third New Orleans-area inductee in the main “performer” category. Fats Domino was included in the Hall of Fame’s inaugural class of 1986. The only other local “performer” to be inducted is Lloyd Price, who is technically a native of Kenner.

Dave Bartholomew, Domino’s producer and co-writer, was inducted as a non-performer, as was producer, songwriter and pianist Allen Toussaint.

Prolific drummer Earl Palmer was honored in 2000 as a sideman. Louis Armstrong, Mahalia Jackson, Professor Longhair and Jelly Roll Morton are all enshrined in the Hall of Fame as “early influences.”

One of two 2011 inductees in the non-performer category also has ties to New Orleans. Art Rupe founded Specialty Records in Los Angeles in the 1940s. He tapped into the deep talent pool in New Orleans by releasing Lloyd Price’s “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” and Guitar Slim’s “The Things You Used to Do,” as well as classic singles by Little Richard.

Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman will also be inducted as a non-performer. Pianist, singer and songwriter Leon Russell, currently enjoying a revival thanks to his hit collaboration with Elton John, “The Union,” will receive the Award for Musical Excellence (previously the sidemen category).

Artists are eligible for inclusion 25 years after the release of their first recording. This year’s inductees were chosen from a larger pool of nominees that included Bon Jovi, the Beastie Boys, LL Cool J, the J. Geils Band and Chic. More than 500 members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation voted on the inductees; voters included Keith Richards and B.B. King.

Rebennack has enjoyed a long and colorful life in New Orleans music. As a teenager, he haunted New Orleans recording studios, contributing to sessions on guitar and eventually producing records and writing songs. A gunshot wound to a finger hastened his switch to piano as his primary instrument.

In the 1960s in Los Angeles, he developed his Dr. John the Night Tripper character with expatriate producer and songwriter Harold Battiste. Dr. John borrowed equally from voodoo imagery and psychedelic rock. “Gris-Gris,” his debut as Dr. John, is considered a classic New Orleans album.

He sang his hit “Such a Night” as part of The Band’s legendary Last Waltz concert. Allen Toussaint produced Rebennack’s “Right Place, Wrong Time,” which featured the Meters as his backing band.

He continued to intermingle funk, his take on New Orleans rhythm & blues standards, and solo piano excursions. Along the way he battled a years-long heroin addiction and developed his own peculiar “fonkified” variation on the English language. He blurs lines between musical genres as well as races.

In 1992, he assembled an all-star cast to record “Goin’ Back to New Orleans,” a primer on the history of New Orleans music that is one of the most satisfying local releases of the past 20 years. His solo piano recordings are also justifiably acclaimed.

At age 70, he remains extremely active despite a number of health issues in recent years. He and his formidable band, the Lower 9-11, maintain a busy performance schedule around the world; they’ll log two nights at Tipitina’s on Dec. 29-30.

He released his latest CD, “Tribal,” this year. He also sings “Down in New Orleans,” the opening song on the soundtrack of “The Princess and the Frog,” the Disney animated film set in jazz era New Orleans.

Matthew Hinton / The Times-PicayuneMac "Dr. John" Rebennack speaks out against BP at a rally in New Orleans' Jackson Square on May 30, 2010.

In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, Rebennack emerged as an outspoken, at times angry, advocate of the city and a critic of what he perceived as the shabby official response to the disaster. His 2008 CD “The City That Care Forgot” dealt directly with that subject.

More recently, he has criticized BP for its response to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, and worked to keep the lingering effects of the spill in the news.

Eventually all inductees are represented at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, Ohio. The March 14 induction ceremony will be broadcast from New York on the Fuse network.

As Rebennack, Russell and Waits all know their way around a keyboard, look for the piano to take center stage in the culminating jam. And with Rebennack in the house, it'll be fonky.

Treme Brass Band's 'Uncle' Lionel Batiste takes Times Square

Keith Spera, The Times-Picayune

If you can make it there…A much, much larger-than-life photograph of “Uncle” Lionel Batiste, the popular Treme Brass Band bass drummer, currently towers over a busy Times Square intersection in Manhattan.

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Batiste is the main image in a multi-story Times Square banner advertising “If God Is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise,” Spike Lee’s follow-up to his 2006 Hurricane Katrina documentary “When the Levees Broke.” The banner sits above a Walgreens at the bustling corner of 7th Avenue and W. 42nd Street, just around the corner from an even more massive banner trumpeting the new Sylvester Stallone film “The Expendables,” which was shot largely in New Orleans. Many thousands of pedestrians and vehicles pass through the intersection daily, experiencing the media sensory overload that is contemporary Times Square.

“If God is Willing and Da Creek Don’t Rise” premieres on HBO in two parts on August 23 and 24. It revisits many of the people viewers met in “Levees.”

Segments recount the New Orleans Saints’ Super Bowl victory, examine efforts to overhaul New Orleans’ public housing and public schools, crime, the Make It Right Foundation’s work in the Lower 9th Ward and Mississippi Gulf Coast recovery. Most of the entire fourth hour of the film is dedicated to the BP oil spill and its aftermath.

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