One of the highlights of my time at SXSW 2014 was seeing Mr. Bobby Rush (who was nominated this past year for a 2014 GRAMMY Award in Best Blues Album for “Down In Louisiana”). There is a bit of discrepancy as to his age. He told the audience he was 81, however Wikipedia says 73. According to The Encyclopedia of Arkansas Music (where he lived for a while), “Bobby Rush, known as the ‘King of the Chitlin’ Circut’…was born Emmett Ellis Jr…in 1935, however the 1940 census lists him as three years old.” It’s a mystery. But what is clear is how incredible a performer, guitar player, blues vocalist and harp player this man is. He has been on over 200 records and played with the likes of Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Bobby “Blue” Bland, BB King, and Johnnie Taylor.
Here Bobby Rush is on harmonica and vocals for a soulful cover of The Beatles “Come Together”
This weekend, Saturday June 22nd and, Sunday June 23rd, the Rainbow Lagoon Park in Long Beach transforms into a home away from home for Louisiana natives, as The Long Beach Bayou and Blues Festival celebrates its 27th year. The two-day Creole and Cajun celebration feature a non-stop dance floor (including dance instruction), a kids corner where they can enjoy the cultural traditions of the Bayou, a crawfish eating contest, some of the best Cajun and Creole cuisine you can find on the West Coast, and of course amazing roots music. The acts include GRAMMY-nominated Pine Leaf Boys, Brian Jack and the Zydeco Gamblers, Sunpie and the Louisiana Sunspots, Jo Jo Reed and the Happy Hill Zydeco Band, Big J McNeely, and Peter Tork and Shoe Suede Blues (yes that Peter Tork of the Monkees), child blues phenom Ray Goren, and blues musician Bernie Pearl. The event will also a feature a second-line traditional Jazz Band and a costume contest!
There is a long history of Louisiana natives moving to Los Angeles that started back in the 1940s and 1950s. This is from a great article from the LA Times back in 1996, called “Left Coast Creole”:
Roland Davidson vividly remembers the day in 1956 when he tooled into town after a four-day drive from New Orleans and found his Louisiana Creole culture waiting for him in South-Central Los Angeles.
He heard the familiar dropped Rs of New Orleans’ 7th Ward along East 61st Street. And a short drive away, on a strip of Jefferson Avenue between Arlington and Crenshaw Boulevard, he found restaurants that served authentic crab etouffee and gumbo Creole-style, barbershops where news from New Orleans was discussed as if the patrons had never left there, and shops where a working man could buy a fried fish or shrimp Po’ boy on a crispy French roll.
“Everybody we hung around with was from New Orleans . . . [including] people who I went to school with in New Orleans,” Davidson recently recalled. “It was just like we all moved up here and got together again.”
The rich history of Louisiana music and culture (and the south in general) has had a huge influence the music and culture of modern Los Angeles from soul and funk in the 60s and 70s to hip-hop in the 80s and 90s. To get a taste of it, head to Long Beach this weekend and maybe you’ll catch me on the dance floor! Okay, truth is, I’m more likely to be found wherever they are selling gumbo, po boys, and red beans and rice.
Below you’ll hear a sampling of the music you’ll hear this weekend. Do I love me some foot-stomping, hard-core zydeco. It is the same family of Cajun-accordion based folk country music, but it has a harder driving rhythm as it blends elements of R&B and Blues. It is unique in that it features the rubboard. The first time I heard a rubboard (it was also the first time I ever saw one), I was mesmerized. (more…)
Since September is traditionally back-to-school month, I thought I’d do a short history lesson on some of the most influential roots piano players. Whether barrelhouse, boogie woogie, boogaloo, or rumba, hard pounding rhythmic piano playing has found its home in the brothels and the concert halls, with styles traveling that swath of land and sea from the Caribbean up through the blues highway to Chicago.
Let’s start our journey at the barrellhouse, defined as both a 1) disreputable old-time saloon or bawdyhouse and 2) an early style of jazz characterized by boisterous piano playing, free group improvisation, and an accented two-beat rhythm.
Champion Jack Dupree was the epitome of New Orleans boogie woogie and barrelhouse blues piano. His birthdate disputed, but the year was between 1908 and 1910. He lived a long life, passing in 1992.
James Edward “Jimmy” Yancey was born in Chicago in 1898 and was a famous pianist by 1915 influencing the boogie woogie style of Meade Lux Lewis and Albert Ammon, who were the predecessors of many blues pianists. Despite his musical prowess, he kept his job as a groundskeeper for the Chicago White Sox his entire life.
We all know that New Orleans has birthed some of the greatest jazz and blues piano players including Professor Longhair, Allen Toussaint, Fats Domino, Dr. John, Harry Connick, Jr. and Henry Butler. Less well known outside of the Crescent City is one who left all those guys in awe, James Booker, who is widely regarded as one of the greatest geniuses of New Orleans piano. Often people unfamiliar with his playing will mistake his sound as two simultaneous piano players:
Up to Chicago by way of Mississippi, Otis Spann was a blues piano player most notably with Muddy Waters, but an artist in his own right. Here he is with “Jangleboogie:”
Born in Havana, Cuba in 1913 and considered “one of the greatest pianists in the history of Cuban music, Pedro “Peruchin” Justiz made his name in Havana’s descarga (jam session) craze of the ’50s; along with Ruben Gonzalez, Lili Martinez, and Bebo Valdes, he was instrumental in shifting the piano into a much more rhythmic role in Afro-Cuban music (source)”. Here is “Peruchin”:
Puerto Rican pianist Noro Morales, born in 1912, was an innovator of combining rhythm and melody, rising to the top of the mambo and rumba word. He played with some of the mambo and salsa greats including Tito Rodríguez, José Luis Moneró, Chano Pozo, Willie Rosario and Tito Puente.
I couldn’t leave out Nuyorican Charlie Palmieri. Less well known than his brother Eddie Palmieri, Charlie gave us really solid boogaloo from the 60s to the 70s. He played with Mongo Santamaria among others. If you have the chance to pick up his album, Either You Have It Or You Don’t, do it!
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention country great Floyd Cramer, who did his own rolling country style piano playing, supporting everyone from Patsy Cline, Chet Atkins to Elvis Presley. Here he is with Chet Atkins:
“Louisiana, Louisiana; It’s beauty’s always aglow.
Moss covered shade trees; Sway in the cool breeze
While lazy bayous flow.” ~ Louisiana state song
Cedric Watson
Bon jour/Bon soir! Since the Saints won the Superbowl and Mardi Gras is around the corner, I thought I’d throw some musical gumbo in the mix! Music Voyager, a new PBS show, recently showcased Louisiana musicians nominated for this year’s Grammy Awards in the Best Zydeco/Cajun category. You can follow host Jacob Edgar on his website, www.musicvoyager.com. Other shows include music of India, Jamaica, and another visit to Louisiana. Very cool! A show after my own heart.
Nominated for a Grammy this year, Cedric Watson et Bijou Créole is one of my new favorite bands. In this clip from Music Voyager, he describes their music as a “gumbo” of Creole, Cajun, and Zydeco music. Check them out on the “Road to a Grammy” episode:
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