Another Way To Spell It

"Bowlegged Woman, Knock-Kneed Man" Pt 1 (Bobby Rush/Calvin Carter)
Bobby Rush, Jewel 834, 1972

Shakin' in the car, and the car won't go. That's the way you spell Chicago.
Knife and a fork and a plate of greens. That's the way you spell New Orleans. –Bobby Rush

I admit that I was late to the Bobby Rush party; and I’m still learning about him. I actually only took note when I started seeing him perform live at various shows in Memphis and New Orleans over the last five or six years. He’s interesting to me because he’s got a strong funk quotient to much of his material, going back into the late 1960s as I’ve discovered, and is a shining example of a performer and songwriter who has no problem crossing over the fuzzy boundaries between blues, soul and funk. Lately, he’s been calling what he does “Folkfunk”; and I guess that’s as good a term as any. When in doubt, create your own category! A lot of his material is mildly salacious and, on stage, he and his band (including several ample, intensely booty-shaking female singer/dancers), do a winking, humorously hokey get-down act that has served them well on the Chitlin’ Circuit for decades; but it can leave many an urban white audience slack-jawed and dumfounded. So it goes. . . .

When I first found and heard this record, I thought it might have been recorded and produced at Shreveport’s Sound City studios, where many Jewel sides were done, using the funky house band there that was also know as the African Music Machine. But, as I researched it, I learned that Rush was still recording in Chicago in 1971, when this side was made. And I could find nothing much out about the backing band. I decided to post it here anyway due to the New Orleans reference, it’s raw, low-down groove, and the fact that Bobby Rush has some Louisiana roots. I don’t know where he assimilated his funk sensibility; but it has been a strong component of his music over the last 40 years.

Born Emmet Ellis, Jr., the son of a preacher, and partially raised near the North Louisiana town of Homer, not far from the Arkansas line (or from Percy Mayfield’s hometown of Minden, LA), he took up harmonica and guitar early in life. In 1948, when he was 12, his family moved to Pine Bluff, Arkansas; and by the early 1950s the teenager was already singing and performing in roadhouses, influenced and inspired by cats such as Louis Jordan, Muddy Waters, and Fats Domino. The legendary Elmore James even played in his band for a short stint back then. By 1956, Ellis had changed is name to Bobby Rush, so as not to have his father’s sanctified name sullied by the devil’s music, and moved to Chicago. There he formed a band that both Freddie King and Luther Allison passed through early on.

By the 1960s, Rush was a regularly working live performer, cutting a few obscure tunes along the way. His records did not sell until he did “Sock Boogaloo” b/w “Much Too Much”* for Checker in 1967. The former song did well enough locally that he got two more great boogaloo sides, “Gotta Have Money”** b/w “Camel Walk”** onto a 1968 ABC single, and then had a few more James Brown-influenced releases on Salem** the next year; but none of those went anywhere. His luck changed in 1971 with his classic, “Chicken Heads” b/w “Mary Jane”**, cut with producer Calvin Carter in Chicago and released on Galaxy. The greasy funk work-out charted and sold well; but, Rush and Carter could only get two other singles, “Gotta Be Funky” b/w “Gotta Find You Girl” and the two-sided “Bowlegged Woman” released on Carter’s On Top label. At a commercial impasse, Rush was released to the Jewel*** label in Shreveport, which re-issued our feature, “Bowlegged Woman, Knock-Kneed Man”, in 1972.

Obviously, Rush had a well-established funky thang goin’ on by then. But it did not connect with the public again until late that decade. After several more singles for Jewel didn’t pop, he left the label in 1974 and subsequently recorded one-off 45s for Warner Brothers and London mid-decade. His star rose again when he hooked up with Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff’s Philadelphia International label, recording another funk-infused hit, “I Wanna Do The Do” in 1979. The label also released a fine LP, Rush Hour, on him; but there were no follow-up hits.

By the 1980s, Bobby Rush had re-located to Jackson, Mississippi to reduce his travel time on the club circuit, and began releasing records on LaJam and Urgent. As the century turned, he put out a number of popular CDs for Waldoxy and his own Deep Rush label. Often called a blues artist, Bobby Rush’s music doesn’t fall simply into one category; but, if you are a funk fan (why else are you here?), there are more great grooves to be found in his catalogue. And that’s how I spell HOTG.

* Hear it at the Soul Club (listed by artist's first name)
** Hear these at Funk 45.
*** Forgot to mention that BR's Jewel material was comped on the Fuel 2000 CD, Bobby Rush - Aboslutely the Best.



What a Rush

Diggin' Two On The Scoobydoo

You know you're getting waaaay behind on your blogging when your wife starts telling you to get another post up. Let's just say some of my many projects are starting to sprout projects! It's getting harder to keep up. Somehow I manage to hold down a day job amidst it all. The Ms wanted me to put up something funky (that's my girl!); and, looking over my running list of prime candidates, I noticed two sides with nothing in common really other than they give good groove and sport some strange lyrics. Since I loves me some novelty tunes, I thought I'd give 'em a go.



"Oogsey Moo" (J. Hill - R. Byrd)
Jessie Hill, Minit 628, 1961
(tune in to HOTG Internet Radio)

As I've noted before around here, there's a deep vein of oddball lyrics and novelties to be mined in New Orleans music, with Huey Smith, Professor Longhair, Allen Toussaint, Jessie Hill and Dr. John being being some of the more well-known sources. For example, the ever-quirky Hill and his band rode his song, "Ooh Poo Pah Do", to unlikely hitdom in 1960 for Minit Records with the help of Allen Toussaint's production work. Supposedly, Jessie "borrowed" at least some of the lyrics from a barrelhouse blues piano player he heard named Big Four, who extemporized the words as he played. Anyway, after it went into the Top Ten, becoming the first big record for the producer and label, and the only one for the singer, Jessie and Toussaint tried in vain for a follow-up hit during the next two years; but a lot of listeners never acquired a taste for Hill's raw, idiosyncratic vocals. Among his other Minit releases were two more novelty/nonsense catch-phrase sides, "Scoop Scoobie Doobie" from later that year, and "Oogsey Moo" in 1961.

For New Orleans music students and collectors, the fairly obscure "Oogsey Moo" has a lot going for it. The music resonates with Professor Longhair's songwriting and playing style, as rendered convincingly on piano by Toussaint; and Fess (R. Byrd) shares co-writer credit with Hill on the tune. In the 1950s Jessie had gigged with Longhair for several years, and it is possible that the two developed the song back then. Befitting the Professor's funked up rhythmic feels, the drums on this tune laid down an insouciant second line strut that should be noted by all looking for early examples of that type of playing in New Orleans R&B. On this cut and most of Hill's other Minit sessions, the backing band probably came from his gigging crew, the House Rockers, who had become regular sessions players for Toussaint and AFO Records, as well: drummer John Boudreaux, bassist Richard Payne, David and Melvin Lastie on sax and trumpet, and maybe Alvin Robinson on guitar, although Papoose Nelson is a strong possibility, too. Oogsey Moo never caught on as a term of endearment or a pop record, but it makes for a memorable hook on a track that exudes the fun loving, feel good essence of its city of origin.



"Niki Hoeky" (J. Ford - L. Vegas - P. Vegas)
Bobby Rush, Jewel 840, 1973/Ronn 125, 1995
(tune in to HOTG Internet Radio)

In Part 2 of our excursion into funky nonsense, we encounter Bobby Rush's take on "Niki Hoeky", with its undulating, swampy groove, surely inspired by the weird, glossolalia of the lyrics, which seemingly attempted to capture the bizarro-world patois of some South Louisiana alternate universe where everybody talks like Pootie Tang (when, of course, people down here all talk like Poo Poo Broussard). Even stranger, I first heard this song done in 1967 by a flamboyantly hokey, puffy-shirted show-biz singer named P. J. Proby, who had the original hit with it - though it didn't sound quite like this. In fact, the song was written by Pat and Lolly Vegas, two American Indian brothers who went on to front the rock band, Redbone. I didn't own Proby's record, just heard it on the radio - and, like I say, I've always had a thing for odd novelty songs and never quite forgot this one. As hilarious as the hokum is, Bobby greases it up and and sells it like snake oil atop the get down groove. His gritty, insinuating vocal lets you know what the song's about, regardless of what the words are. Lest that slip by us, though, right before the fade he adds, "I, I like to do strange things to you" - ah, those freaky deaky Seventies.

So, while the Louisiana born and bred Rush wasn't exactly breaking new ground recording "Niki Hoeky" - Aretha Franklin did a fairly straight cover of it on Lady Soul in 1968 - he put da serious fonk to it. This side originally came out in 1973 on Jewel backed with "I Don't Know", and was his second release for the Shreveport-based label. Although great records were being made there at Sound City Studio, it seems Rush was still doing sessions in Chicago, which was his base of operations at the time. My Ronn single is a digital re-master of the earlier recording, with one of his un-released Jewel tracks, "Get Out Of Here With you Boom Boom", on the flip. It came out around 1995 on colored vinyl to coincide with the Ronn CD compilation of his Jewel sides, It's Alright, which I don't think is in print anymore. But the tracks can also be found on the Fuel 2000 CD, Bobby Rush, Absolutely The Best, which I think has also been cut out.

And now that you're hip to the consultation, enjoy.

FUNKIFY YOUR LIFE - SHOW #6 - PLAYLIST

Air dates: Thursday, September 11, 2014, 1:00 PM, and Friday, September 12, 2014, 9:00 PM, on KRVS 88.7 FM Lafayette/Lake Charles, and online at krvs.org. You can hear a podcast of this show and previous shows on the website under “Programs” anytime.

First off, R.I.P. Cosimo Matassa, who died Thursday, at 88. Since I recorded the show two days earlier, I could not mention it in on-air. I won’t be doing a specific special on Cos for the show or blog, since he was involved in at least 98% of the New Orleans music recorded between the late 1940s and early 1970s.

When considering the real impact Cosimo and his three successive studios had on the city’s musical legacy, you realize that the world-changing popular music of New Orleans, be it R&B, rock ‘n’ roll, soul, funk or jazz might not have have flourished if he had not been there to document it and assist in making available to home turntables, neighborhood jukeboxes, and radio stations far and wide. It literally changed the world, and for the better. He always humbly credited the musicians he recorded for that; but, as the recording engineer (self-taught!!!), Cos was the man who captured the performances on magnetic tape as accurately as he could. In the 1960s, he began mastering and pressing many of those records, too, with the same care and professionalism. The sound he got, under primitive conditions by industry standards, was exceptional. So, every show and post featuring some of those records always has been and always will be a Cosimo special.

Read Keith Spera’s fine obituary on Cos at nola.com and see the video there of author/historian Rick Coleman interviewing the man himself. There has long been a link (Secrets of Cosimo’s Studio) in my sidebar under Resources to another revealing interview with Cos, covering the mainly technical aspects of his recording process. Even if you are not familiar with studio gear, it’s a fascinating glimpse into how he operated.

Sadly, I also note the recent passing of Tim Green, one of New Orleans’ best sax players. He never sought the spotlight, but was highly valued on the scene. I always enjoyed hearing him live and as a contributor to various studio projects over the years.

This week’s show was almost completely sourced from vinyl, with only the lead-off Dr. John cut coming from a CD re-issue, because I cannot locate the LP around here - in the wrong place at the wrong time!

“Funkify Your Life” [Intro] (Neville-Neville-Nocentelli-Porter, Jr-Modeliste) - The Meters - from the Sundazed reissue of their Warner Bros album, New Directions, 2000

"Peace Brother Peace” (Mac Rebennack) - Dr. John - from a MFSL remastered reissue CD containing the original ATCO 1973 LP, In The Right Place, 1995.
Still seeking my original LP copy. It’s around here somewhere. The album had the Meters as rhythm section, with Allen Toussaint producing, and contained the now well-known radio hits, “Right Place, Wrong Time” and “Such A Night”. Not a clinker on it. This tune started my “Peace” set this week, meant to help counteract (“doctorate your soul”, as the song says) the dire memories of this date,thirteen years ago. It also served as the theme song for my WEVL show back in Memphis, where my handle was ‘The Spin Doctor’.

“Smoke My Peace Pipe” (Willie Tee) - The Wild Magnolias - from their Polydor single #14242, 1974.
Written by funkmaster keyboardist, Wilson ‘Wille Tee’ Turbinton, who also arranged the music for the original album, The Wild Magnolias, this trippy track appeared in its full-length form there. The LP came out on Barclay in Europe and Polydor in the US that same year. Tee also put together the backing band, generically dubbed the New Orleans Project by the producer, with members of his own band, The Gaturs, plus his brother, Earl Turbinton on soprano sax, Snooks Eaglin on guitar, and various of the WM on percussion.

The album was the first of two Philippe Rault produced for Barclay, the result of an historic jam session several years earlier between the Gaturs and WM at a music festival on the Tulane University campus. Quint Davis put on that event, and then produced two obscure singles featuring the Wild Magnolias backed by Tee and various other funk musicians, before Rault came to town. Lead vocals were by Theodore Emile ‘ Bo’ Dollis, Big Chief of the Mild Magnolias, who were (and still are) a part of the rich and once mysterious Mardi Gras Indian tradition in New Orleans.

“Peace Begins Within” (LeFevre, et al) - Bobby Powell - from his original Whit single #6908, 1971.
This is Bobby Powell’s cover version of the song originally recorded by Christian rocker Mylon LeFevre in 1970 on his Mylon album that was produced by Allen Toussaint. On this version, the great, ear-catching arrangement was by label-owner Lionel Whitfield. It was probably recorded in Baton Rouge, home of Powell and the label.

“That’s All A Part Of Lovin’ Him” (Jerry Strickland-Bobby Patterson) - Tommie Young - from her original Soul Power single #114, 1972.
As I said on the show, Bobby Patterson, soul singer, producer, arranger and writer, discovered the gifted singer, Tommie Young, in Dallas, where she was predominantly doing gospel, and brought her to Shreveport to record for the new Soul Power label he had started with producer/writer Jerry Strickland, who ran Sound City studio. Over the next two years, she sang material, much of it written by Patterson and Strickland, that was released on six singles and one album. Several of the songs charted, but didn’t really sell especially well or get much airplay outside the South. They probably could have done better had she toured to help promote them. With no breakout national hit, Young went back to Dallas and gospel after her run with Soul Power, but did get wider attention in 1978, when she sang on the soundtrack to Cicely Tyson’s movie, A Woman Called Moses.

For more details, see what the intrepid crew at Soul Detective had to say about her.

“Walking On A Tightrope” (Percy Mayfield) - Percy Mayfield - from his original Brunswick LP, Walking On A Tightrope, 1969.
Often called “The Poet Of The Blues”, Mayfield started life in Minden, LA, located east of Shreveport, in the northwest part of the state. After high school, he began writing songs and pursued a singing career in Texas, then relocated to Los Angeles by the late 1940s, where he soon made a name for himself and had numerous hits as a featured artist. For more details on this incredibly prolific and talented man, check out his bio.

This particular album of all original material for Brunswick was probably recorded in Chicago, where the label was based. Being 1969, there was a lot of funkiness going in the playing and arrangements.

“Gotta Be Funky” (Bobby Rush-Calvin Carter) - Bobby Rush - from his original On Top single #2000, 1972.
Bobby Rush, grew up in Homer, LA, right up the road from Minden, not far from the Arkansas line. When he was a teenager, his family relocated to Arkansas, where he began his performing career; and, by the 1960s, he was active on the Chicago blues scene and started recording, having some success with upbeat boogaloo R&B. By the start of the next decade, his music had moved to the distinctly funky side, and his lyrics and stage act got raunchy. He recorded sporadically and stayed on the road, playing the southern “Chitlin; Circuit” for decades. But it wasn’t until the turn of the century that things took off, as he has recorded a series of well-received CDs, still highly funkified, and won numerous awards from the Blues Foundation. For some more info, see my posts from 2006 and 2007 on two of his singles released by the Jewel label.

“Cha Dooky Doo” (M. Vince) - Art Neville - from his original Special single #637, 1958.
Art Neville, oldest of the Neville brothers, one of New Orleans’ most well-known musical families, was a bandleader and solo recording artist long before he formed the Meters in the late 1960s, and brought his siblings together as a supergroup a decade later. At 17, he joined the Hawketts as pianist and singer, and the popular local band recorded the classic “Mardi Gras Mambo”, which came out on Chess Records. They remained active on the local scene; and in 1956, Harold Battiste, who was handling A&R for Specialty Records, offered Art a contract as a solo artist. Meanwhile, he and the Hawketts became the road band for another Specialty artist, Larry Williams. “Cha Dooky Doo” was released in 1958, and sold well, giving Art more exposure; but he was soon drafted and went into the Navy. Although Specialty released another single on him, his inability to tour to promote his records caused the label to cool on him. On his return, he moved on to work with Allen Toussaint at Instant Records in the early 1960s.

Frequently noted on this track is the distorted guitar sound, that was very influential, but not done on purpose. I forget which, but the amp either had a cracked speaker or a loose tube. But that fuzz tone would become increasingly popular in rock music over the years. For more on two of Art’s solo sides from later in the 1960s, see my 2007 post.

“High Cotton” (Lloyd Lambert) - Lloyd Lambert and His Band - from their Specialty single #553, 1955. Lambert was a bassist and bandleader from New Orleans, who was the first in town to use the electric version of the instrument. When Guitar Slim signed with Specialty and started recording, he was backed by Lambert’s band in the studio and on the road. This mid-50s instrumental by the band featured the quirky piano work of Lawrence Cotton and some great growling sax work by Joe Tillman.

“No Buts, No Maybes” (Roy Byrd) - Professor Longhair - from a 1980s reissue single of his original 1957 ebb 45 #101.
The groove-wear on my ebb copy was just too noisy for good radio listening. So, I used the clean reissue instead - which is also why I kind of misspoke on-air about this set being all Specialty sides. You can hear the original version on my post from earlier this year on cool piano tracks by Fess, Ray Johnson, and James Booker.

“Baby Don’t You Do It” (Holland-Dozier-Holland) - Alvin Robinson - from his original ATCO single #6581, 1968.
Known in musical circles as ‘Shine’, the late singer/guitarist Alvin Robinson remains a severely under-recognized New Orleans artist in the Ray Charles mold, who made some great records few have heard. For more details on this single and his activities in the late 1960s and early 1970s, check my 2010 post. Marvin Gaye did the original version of this tune in 1964.

“Chained” (F. Wilson) - The Sister and Brothers - from their Calla single #175, 1970.
This 45, as did the Baton Rouge group’s first on Uni (I played a cut on show #3), featured Geri Richard on lead vocal. Here, she did a song originally recorded by Marvin Gaye for Tamla in 1968. For more details on Richard and this Calla single, see my 2008 post.

“I Heard It Through The Grapevine” (N. Whitfield-B. Strong) - Ray Johnson - from his original In-Arts single #107, 1968,
Another Marvin Gaye-related track, this time recorded by keyboard professor Ray Johnson, who I also featured on show #3. For more backstory on his incendiary instrumental version of the tune, see my 2012 post on several of his singles.

“Jump Into Your Love” (Ernie K-Doe) - Mr. Ernie K-Doe and the Olympia Music Co. - from his Syla single (no number), ca late 1980s.
Speaking of incendiary. This track knocks you back as soon as the horns blast after the short drum countdown, grabs your backside, and shakes you around like a ragdoll. As I noted in my 2008 post on this 45, it was his last vinyl release, as far as I can tell; and the fact of the medium employed meant that not all that many people could hear it, except maybe on some old club jukeboxes somewhere, and the turntables of WWOZ and WTUL, where surely it got some non-commercial airplay. Anyway, I can’t improve on what I said about the single there, so read it, if you dare.

“Who’s Gettin; Your Love” (Willie Hutch) - Etta James - from her original T-Electric LP, Changes, 1980.
The making of this album, produced/arranged by Allen Toussaint and recorded at Sea-Saint, was a saga that lasted several years on and off, as two different record labels were involved, then uninvolved in the process, before MCA stepped in to complete the sessions and release the LP on T-Electric. I discussed that backstory in a 2011 post on the late great drummer, Herman Ernest.

“Love Grows On Ya” (Ed Volker) - The Radiators - from their Epic LP, Zig-Zaggin’ Through Ghostland, 1989.
About a decade after the Radiators got their start, they were signed to a major label, Epic, who released three albums on them in the late 1980s. Zig-Zaggin’ was the second. Despite having some impressive material, it has been long overlooked and underheard. Their first for the label, Law Of The Fish, had their radio “hits”; but Epic pretty much stopped promoting them as soon as the initial buzz cooled off. Though definitely a rock band, the Rads were always too eccentric and eclectic in their influences and creative process to fit into any mainstream record company niche. They had a long and successful career doing their own thing on independent labels, their own and others, and, of course tearing it up on stage. They were meant to be experienced live. Hope you were around for some of that before they retired. If not, catch a reunion show - they still do ‘em occasionally.

“The Point” (Mac Rebennack) - Mac Rebennack - from his original AFO single #309, 1962.
Mac (a/k/a Dr John, later in the decade and beyond) had not been playing organ long when the recorded this 45 for AFO, with another great tune, “One Naughty Flat”, on the flip. Quick learner ain’t the half of it. I covered this record in my 2012 post on organ instrumentals.

“Red Dress” (see notes) - Chosen Few Brass Band - from their original Syla LP, The Chosen Few Brass Band, 1985.
During their brief run, the Chosen Few were led by tuba master Anthony ‘Tuba Fats’ Lacen, who had earlier helped the Dirty Dozen Brass Band get off the ground. This tune is actually an uncredited instrumental version of Tommy Tucker’s 1964 R&B classic, “High Heel Sneakers”, a worthy addition to the brass band repertoire. Since this was a ULL football weekend, it seemed a red dress was appropriate attire for the second line out.


On yeah, and….WHO DAT!!!

Tracking The Big Q Factor, Pt 5.2: More Sansu/Sea-Saint Sessions

It’s time to get back to the Big Q thread.

My prior entry last November (Part 5.1) in this sporadic series on the career of producer/arranger Wardell Quezergue discussed his transition back to working in New Orleans around 1973, following a two year association with Malaco Studios in Jackson, MS. At the newly opened Sea-Saint recording facility operated by Sansu Enterprises, he was contracted to do arrangements on several projects, including a reunion with singer Robert Parker for sessions that resulted in a series of singles released by Island Records. You can read about ‘em and find links to earlier parts of the series in that post, too.

This go-around, I’m featuring Wardell’s work with another New Orleans “name” artist, Ernie K-Doe, who had already been on the Sansu roster for five years, plus several examples of his involvement in the making of albums for outside artists and labels. As you’ll see, these were not high profile jobs by any means, but helped pay the bills along with his similar work for other companies who needed his services. Whatever the circumstances, he always operated with consummate professionalism and imparted a sense of harmonic and rhythmic class to the proceedings.

K-Doe’s Sansu Sojourn

Ernie K-Doe signed with Sansu Enterprises in 1970, right after partners Allen Toussaint and Marshall Sehorn changed the company name from Tou-Sea Productions, and several years before Sea-Saint was built. At the time, the principals were going through a general revamp of operations and objectives, having managed to barely survive the Dover Records debacle and its dire ramifications for the local music and recording scene. In those lean times, Sansu lost or let go most of their previous roster of singers and began to turn away from issuing singles on their in-house labels - Tou-Sea, Deesu, and Sansu - in favor of licensing more productions to outside companies with better access to the national market. Even more importantly, as the record industry became increasingly focused on the long-playing album as the main product format, Sehorn set about aligning the company with that business model.

At the time, Sansu’s remaining artists were Lee Dorsey, who had not had a significant hit for several years, the remarkable but never commercially successful Eldridge Holmes, Willie Harper (mainly a background singer), and the Meters, whose instrumental funk singles on the New York-based Josie label were hot in the charts. Sehorn had just negotiated a new deal for Dorsey with Polydor, which would result in the Yes We Can album, written and produced by Toussaint, and get the singer briefly back in the charts. Things were looking up; and it seemed a good time for K-Doe to join the team, as the prolific Toussaint had plenty of good material for him to sing.

Of course, K-Doe and Toussaint already shared a legendary connection, having made pop music history back in 1961, while working for Joe Banashak’s Minit Records. As the label’s one man A&R department, the young Toussaint established his reputation by bringing forth numerous soon to be classic hit records performed by various in-house artists, including K-Doe, whose take on “Mother-In-Law” (written under Toussaint’s nom de plume, Naomi Neville), certainly one of greatest novelty tunes of the era, rose to the top of the R&B and pop charts. He cut more than a dozen fine, less successful singles for the label up until 1963, when Toussaint was drafted and Minit was assimilated by Liberty Records; but that one big hit was to be K-Doe’s professional calling card for the rest of his life. For a fascinating and complete telling of the ultra-flamboyant performer’s story, do yourself a favor and read Ben Sandmel’s beautiful extravaganza of a book, Ernie K-Doe: The R&B Emperor of New Orleans.

Following his run with Minit, K-Doe was picked up by Duke Records, the Houston-based label run by the notorious Don Robey. There were at least nine singles by K-Doe released on Duke between 1964 and 1970; but only two of the songs got into the national charts, both stalling-out shy of the Top 20. Considering that lack of commercial appeal, it is surprising that the label kept K-Doe around so long. Maybe Robey was a fan. In any case, he finally cut his losses and let the singer go as the 1960s came to an end.

That’s when Sansu brought K-Doe into the fold and put him in the studio (Jazz City, which was being run by engineer Skip Goodwin with the bankrupt Cosimo Matassa as silent partner) to work his vocal magic on a cache of Toussaint songs that had been tracked by the Meters [at least most of them, as their drummer, Zig, may not have participated on all cuts]. Sehorn then took those, along with an EK-D original, plus one by tunesmith Al Reed, and shopped the lot around as an album package for national release. In 1971, Janus Records in New York took it on, issuing the LP, Ernie K. Doe [see my earlier post]; but, despite the first rate soul-pop songwriting, excellent arrangements and performances throughout, the record was not well-received and quickly wound up in the cut-out bins when the two singles issued from it failed to get significant airplay.

In the wake of the album’s failure, K-Doe remained under contract with Sansu but did not get the opportunity to record again for several more years, well after Sea-Saint opened.

Big Q’s First And Last K-Doe Sessions

When K-Doe finally did get green-lighted to make some more singles, the sessions were arranged, if not wholly produced, by Wardell Quezergue over the span of a year or so. As far as I know, it was the only time that the two worked together on records in the course of their long careers.

The first songs issued, “Let Me Love You”/”So Good”, appeared on a 1975 Island Records single. As previously discussed, the label was also releasing 45s by Robert Parker that Big Q had arranged. Island would also put out a single by Tony Owens that Isaac Bolden produced and arranged, as well as the 1976 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival double album mentioned last time.

I recently realized while rummaging through my archives that the Sansu/Island relationship was not really about those singles, or even the JazzFest LP set - they were merely incidental. Instead, the companies first crossed paths in 1974 when Island brought Robert Palmer to Sea-Saint to record part of his debut solo LP, Sneakin’ Sally Through the Alley, with the Meters. The company then contracted with Sansu to make albums for two funky rock groups on its roster, High Cotton and the James Montgomery Band, under the partners’ direction. Those production deals provided Sehorn with a window of opportunity to place Sansu’s local projects with the label, as well.

That brings us back to the first K-Doe/Big Q collaboration.



“So Good” (M. Monley)
Ernie K-Doe, Island 031, 1975

“Let Me Love You” (M. Monley)

I’m reversing the order of the songs because “So Good”, with its pronounced gospel feel was too good to be a B-side. The ever-fervent singer played off the danceable, poppin’, soul groove to good effect, making this the puller of the two, despite some hard to decipher lyrics, and worth replays.

Unfortunately, the down-tempo “Let Me Love You” proved to be an ineffective lead-off choice, having a repeated descending progression that made the song kind of one long verse, a floating fragment without much melodic direction. It lacked the structural interplay of a chorus and bridge to plant some hooks into listeners. Not only that, the lyrics, though well-sung, weren’t very engaging, either.

Beyond the running order problem, there was another factor that probably kept this record off radio playlists. Both tunes were stylistic throwbacks to the previous decade, in spirit and probably in fact. M(arie) Monley, credited as writer, had been so designated on quite a few of K-Doe’s Duke sides, too. As Sandmel discovered, she was one of the singer’s girlfriends in the 1960s, leading the biographer to believe (as do I) that the songs attributed to her were actually the singer’s own compositions, probably a ruse to dodge the taxman should the record have hit and made money. To my thinking, Monley’s credits on the Island sides confirm they were left-overs from his days with Duke and well past their pop freshness date.

Wardell took the tunes at face value, keeping the arrangements simple and straightforward, with no attempt to update the sound. Considering how little he had to work with on the A-side, we’re left to wonder who thought this was a good choice for a national release in the first place. When it inevitably tanked, Island opted-out of another try.

Within a year, though, Sansu issued two more K-Doe singles on their own reactivated namesake imprint. The new Sansu label would operate from the mid 1970s through the rest of the decade, and seems to have been intended for local consumption 45s. While Wardell’s work was not credited on any of those K-Doe sides, evidently he did do the arrangements. That lack of acknowledgement and the general low profile of the records was most certainly due to the unusual circumstances of how they came to be. As it turns out, one track on each single had been recycled from another Sea-Saint project going on at the time.


 
“You Got To Love Me” (Ernie K-Doe)
Ernie K-Doe, Sansu 1006, 1975

The mid-tempo A-side, “You Got To Love Me”, was a marked improvement in all respects over “Let Me Love You” on the Island single. The structure of this EK-D original was more developed, having an appealing progression and melody line, not to mention a nice rhythmic swing to it. Most outstanding musically, though, is the big league horn arrangement Big Q graced the track with - simultaneously tasteful and adventurous. Just listen to the intricate turnaround phrase the horns negotiate between the intro and verse, and choruses and verses. Im-friggin’-peccable.

Of course, leave it to K-Doe to turn the proceedings into another novelty song by incorporating the titles of popular daytime TV soap operas into his lyrics. Sandmel notes that the singer watched the soaps regularly - so that’s where he got the idea; but it really was a clever, quirky twist to add them to a love song, as many of his female audience, and even some of the men, no doubt, could relate. The fact that he also peppered the track with self-references, his patented giggles, and other ad-lbs, probably limited the potential appeal to his local fan-base, but certainly left no question about who did it.



“Stoop Down” (Marshall Sehorn)

On the flipside was a decidedly different, a spicy variation on the highly suggestive blues song, “Stoop Down Baby”, made popular by Chick Willis in 1972, which had origins (a/k/a “Drop Down Mama”) going back at least to pre-WWII blues performers. Wardell’s arrangement transformed the tune into an effective, uptown funk strut with multi-layered poly-rhythmic counterpoint highly similar to a song on the next single, as well.


 
“Hotcha Mama” (Paul Lenart-Larry Levine)
Ernie K-Doe, Sansu 1016, 1976

While looking up information on the writers of the equally funky “Hotcha Mama”, which was obviously in the same groove as “Stoop Down”, I suddenly realized that both songs appeared on the eponymous James Montgomery Band LP Island recorded at Sea-Saint during this period. I had not listened to it for years; and, when I pulled it out and played the tracks, I was shocked into laughter to hear that the music tracks for both were the same ones on K-Doe’s Sansu singles! The singers were different, of course, and the mixes varied a bit; but the playing was identical.

On the JMB album, both Toussaint and Sehorn were credited with production for Sansu Enterprises, and Wardell shown as arranger. For whatever reason [cheapness comes to mind], someone at Sansu {Sehorn, most likely] “borrowed” the two JMB tracks and replaced Montgomery’s vocal with K-Doe’s. I doubt that Island or the band, whose lead guitarist, Paul Lenart, co-wrote “Hotcha Mama”, were consulted. As part of the album deal with Island, Marsaint Music, the producers’ publishing company, shared rights to the music, which I guess was their general excuse to re-use the tracks; but a more honest approach would have been to re-record the songs entirely. In a further feat of misappropriation, Sehorn also implausibly took the writer’s credit for “Stoop Down” on both the JMB LP and K-Doe’s single. The lack of commercial impact for either K-Doe record resulted in no one outside the studio noticing the subterfuge, maybe until right now.

Anyway, back to the song at hand with K-Doe again secretly backed by the James Montgomery Band on one of their originals [see below]. Only the horn section, who Big Q gave somewhat more challenging charts than on “Stoop Down”, were Sansu session regulars. As you might expect, I prefer K-Doe’s takes on the appropriated JMB tracks. His supple, playful, and eminently expressive singing style combined with Wardell’s arrangements to give these standard-issue funk grooves (Sandmel deems them “generic”) the necessary personality to keep us involved.

The B-side had K-Doe doing the incongruous “(I Can’t Believe) She Gave It All To Me”, a Conway Twitty ballad that benefited from Big Q’s artful arranging (again, uncredited), with backing by the Sansu session staff, augmented by a string section. In the spirit of Ray Charles’ famously soulful renditions of country songs, K-Doe’s performance affirmed that he was well-suited for such interpretation.

Like his Island outing, these two singles got no more than minor local action thanks to scant promotion, and turned out to be his final releases during a tenure with Sansu Enterprises that, surprisingly, continued until 1980, according to Sandmel. The reasons the principals at Sansu, who did not include Big Q, kept K-Doe on the hook so long, considering the spotty output and poor sales, remain unclear. But it seems no less than a disservice to the artist, who received no boost whatsoever to his public profile from the association. Lacking sufficient new material of his own to record and with nothing written by Toussaint made available for his use after the initial LP, K-Doe was marginalized by Sansu, either by design or indifference.

As a result, he was unable to get regular bookings, sending his career and personal life into an extended downward spiral. It took until the late 1980s for K-Doe to record again and begin to get his life and performing mojo back together.

Some Other Big Q Assignments

As noted earlier, beyond the less than lucrative singles market, Sansu’s bread and butter during the 1970s at Sea-Saint was contracting with various mainstream labels to record their artists there and, if possible, have Toussaint produce the albums, or parts thereof. The famous, obscure, and all shades in-between made LPs at the studio as a result. Probably the most notable of those sessions involved LaBelle’s Nightbirds LP for Epic, which generated a monster hit with the Toussaint's treatment of “Lady Marmalade”. As time went on, there was more work than Toussaint could handle, especially on the arranging front, so Wardell would be called upon to ply his talents on various projects, as needed.

To round out this episode, here are a few examples ranging from the mid-1970s into the 1980s.

High Energy


 
In 1975, a seasoned and already legendary blues outfit, the James Cotton Band, made this LP at Sea-Saint for the Buddah label. Production credit was shared by Toussaint and Sehorn, with Big Q handling the arrangements.

For New Orleans music fans, the album is notable for several reasons. Toussaint contributed two songs to the sessions, the bouncy “Hot ‘n Cold” and easy-going “Hard Time Blues”. Also chosen for Louisiana flavor were Bobby Charles’ “Keep Cooking Mama” and Bobby Rush’s funky get-down, “ Chicken Heads”. Wardell and Isaac Bolden also wrote two of the tracks, “Weather Report (The Weather Man Said)” and “James’ Theme”. Besides Cotton’s fine group, other session players included not only the house horn section, but several frequent contributors: Toussaint, James Booker and Big Q on keyboards, plus guitarists Steve Hughes and Teddy Royal.

I featured “Hard Time Blues” along with an overview of High Energy on a post back in 2006. So, I won’t go into much detail about it here except to point out, as I did then, that the album’s title is misleading at best, since the material and grooves never rise above mid-tempo, having a mainly laid-back, in-the-pocket funk vibe. While cool, the general lack of dynamics certainly didn’t represent what Cotton and his powerhouse band could do so well, blow some take-no-prisoners blues.

I’m sure everyone involved in the project from the record company on down shared some blame for that design flaw; but let’s hear some of what Big Q did with the material he was given.

“Hot And Cold” (Allen Toussaint)

Definitely the least laid back track of the lot, “Hot And Cold” sticks out for that catchy bounce it talks about, being neither a blues nor a funk groove, but one of Toussaint’s prototypical pop tunes. Its intricate construction of interlocking rhythmic parts, perfectly represented by Wardell’s arrangement, and the cheery, sing-along melody deserved a shot at radio play, even delivered by a gravel-voiced bluesman.

As fate would have it, Robert Parker recorded this song around the same time, as part of his Island sessions, but the track was not released until a 1980s compilation. It was certainly more in his pop wheelhouse; but James ‘Superharp’ Cotton got the release. Go figure.

Note: There are two pianos on the track. I think Toussaint is playing, rather sparingly, the acoustic, while Booker vamped it up on the electric. Also, that’s Lon Price on tenor sax solo.

“I Got A Feelin” (James Cotton)

I chose this cut both because it has Cotton’s harmonica playing on it, and Big Q’s horn arrangement is a stand-out. As an added bonus, you can hear in the background Booker percolating on the keyboard. Once again, Price served up a fine solo of his own, too.

The funk pocket on this Cotton original is more or less where the rest of the album sits, all well and good. But certainly not high energy.

Not long thereafter, another blues-based band rolled in to record, the one mentioned earlier that Ernie K-Doe got unwittingly tangled up with. As did Cotton’s group, they set aside at least some of the spontaneity and dynamics of their live performance style for a more controlled, calculated approach.

James Montgomery Band


 
“Hotcha Mama” (Paul Lenart-Larry Levine)

“Foot Floppin’” (James Montgomery/David Woodford)

James Montgomery, a Detroit native, formed his funky, rockin’ blues and R&B band in 1970 while attending college in Boston. After becoming one of the most in-demand groups in the Northeast, they signed with Capricorn Records in 1973, making two decent, but not strong-selling LPs before switching to Island, who brought them to Sea-Saint to record with Toussaint in charge, hoping, I’m sure, for some commercial magic to happen on this eponymous album. Apropos of where they were at, the proceedings kept to funk, soul and R&B feels; and, with Big Q arranging, they cut a mix of original material and cover tunes, including two New Orleans classics, Huey ‘Piano’ Smith and the Clowns’ “Don’t You Just Know It” and Willie Tee’s “Teasin’ You”, the latter, of course, first produced by Wardell.

At the risk of redundancy, I’ve got their version of “Hotcha Mama” up to demonstrate that it was the instrumental source of K-Doe’s take, and why I considered his vocal romp superior to Montgomery’s decent but rather lackluster vocal take.

The other track, “Foot Floppin’, written by Montgomery and his sax player, who takes the solo, stepped directly into the hip territory of the Average White Band, who were scoring mainstream hits at the time. As hooky and tightly coiled as it is instrumentally, the lyrics were perfunctory, making the final result no new “Barefootin’” by any means, despite Big Q’s seamlessly supportive horn arrangement.

Overall, the band and Sansu team put together some fine goovin’ and ensemble playing; but the album lacked any really stand-out moments. Again, like the James Cotton's outfit, the JMB were (and are, they still perform and record to this day), a unit best heard in their on-stage habitat. An outstanding record for them would have had to capture at least some of that edge and excitement; but, it didn’t quite happen that way at Sea-Saint.

Ice On Fire


 
This album by the Jamaican reggae vocal trio, the Mighty Diamonds, was tracked at Sea-Saint in 1977 for Virgin Records. Again,Toussaint and Sehorn received the production credit, while Wardell was the arranger of record; but, this time around, the studio’s staff musicians provided all the backing. I wrote an overview of the LP for a post back in 2010; so check it out, as I won’t rehash all the details here.

“Coming Through” (F. Simpson - L. Ferguson)

The work of Big Q and the band on this tune, an MD original, pretty much sums up the modus operandi on the record as a whole. As usual, his arrangements were tight and contained subtly effective interior rhythmic counterpoints; but, while the playing was professional studio grade, the reggae was a pop approximation. The sound and grooves were safe and similar, lacking that certain something that could inspire the Mighty Diamonds to shine.

The group had a prior string of hits at home and in England; but, bringing them in to record with the Sansu team, Virgin had hopes, it seems, of both breaking the trio in the US market and appealing to their fans; but that proved to be a naive miscalculation. The album was a commercial dud. Reggae music is such a vibe experience for seriously attuned fans that having “outsiders”, even great New Orleans players, do some hybrid interpretation of the genre proved unsatisfying to the group’s devotees, who refused to buy the record; and it failed to attract significant new audience, either, even among followers of New Orleans music.

Summing up the LP over 30 years later in an interview with Reggaeville, the Mighty Diamonds’ Fitzroy ‘Bunny’ Simpson, called it “a destruction” for its lack of true reggae rhythms and spirit, but acknowledged the recording team’s good intentions. He laid the blame with Virgin executives who inexplicably failed to bring along at least the killer rhythm section (Sly and Robbie) who played such an integral part on the trio’s previous hits.

Hold On To Your Dream



Actually, this final example of Wardell’s arranging jobs for outside artists, a track from the Staple Singers’ 1981 LP for 20th Century Fox, was not a Sansu production, though cut at Sea-Saint with local players, not that it showed all that much. The Staples produced the album with Englishman John Abbey; and I’m sure they wanted the esteemed Big Q especially for his skills working with strings and horns, since a number of the tracks were big, lush productions.

I’ve covered this record previously; and you can delve into more detail on that post. But I will point out again something out of the ordinary about the basic rhythm section: Sam Henry, Jr. on keyboards, George Porter, Jr. (and possibly David Barrard) on bass, guitarists Bruce MacDonald and Teddy Royal, along with Bernard Johnson on drums, and Ken Williams, percussion. Most of them were session regulars at Sea-Saint, with Johnson just coming on board; but MacDonald (a/k/a “Weasel” back then) was not. What got him into these sessions was the fact that he was a member of Porter’s popular band at the time, Joyride, which also included Henry, who was a long-time Big Q collaborator.

“Love Came Knocking” (George Jackson)

Penned by the great R&B, soul and rock songwriter, George Jackson, this was one of three stripped-down, funky numbers on the record, including another of his, “Stupid Louie”. I featured the third, “Show Off the Real You”, on that previous post.

Here, Johnson played a fairly straightforward funk strut groove reinforced by Porter’s pulsating bass lines, while Henry comped basic electric piano chords, MacDonald interjected snarky-toned guitar fills here and there, and the horns, also used sparingly, popped in and out for rhythmic emphasis. The lean, open arrangement perfectly suited this simple song and allowed Mavis Staples, backed by her sisters, to get the maximum effect from her rather low-key, smokey lead vocal.

Neither Hold On to Your Dream nor the single featuring the title song charted; and the album was quickly forgotten, along with most of the records they made after leaving the Curtom label in the mid-1970s, including three for Warner Bros and a later one for Private. But their rich legacy of gospel, soul and funk music going back to the 1950s have ensured their place in the annals of great American vocal groups. Not only that, Mavis Staples remains an astonishing soul interpreter.

The fact that most of the outside projects recorded and produced by Sansu were not commercial winners meant that, by the early 1980s, the team had lost much of the appeal it had to recording companies; and that side of their business subsided. Without some big hits coming out, a studio and producer lose their cachet over time; and even at their “Lady Marmalade” height, Toussaint and Sea-Saint did not get in the really big industry accounts, with the exception of Paul McCartney and Wings’ LP for Capitol, Venus and Mars, recorded at the studio with a little help from Toussaint and a few other local players.

As for Wardell, his work for Sansu was not all he was up to in the 1970s. As I have noted, he regularly worked for Senator Jones’ group of labels and had his own private production projects from time to time. Not only that, for a few years mid-decade he regularly travelled to Shreveport, LA to do production and arranging for a soul label, Alarm. My next installment on Big Q will cover some of those Alarm singles by artists such as Ted Taylor and Reuben Bell.

Until then, I’ll be covering more artists and grooves from the HOTG archives, so check back. . . .

I’ll leave you with a re-quote from Danny Jones, who co-engineered the Staple Singers album at Sea-Saint, on what working with Big Q was like. It’s taken from my 2007 post about the LP:

Wardell.....what can I say? One of the nicest, easy going producer/arrangers I've ever worked with. Absolutely knew what he was going after and knew how to convey it to everyone. He was always in command, but ruled with a calm politeness. Wardell was always a gentleman, a very talented gentleman. Everyone had a great deal of respect for him. I knew if I was booked on a session with Wardell it would be good session, because it always was! Wardell is one of the reasons I still miss New Orleans!