Around 1978, before there was Fatboy Slim or Slim Shady and a bit after the heyday of Guitar Slim and Memphis Slim, the music reviews of Almost Slim began appearing in the New Orleans weekly Figaro, a journal of which I was Associate Editor.
This particular Slim was actually a recent arrival from Canada named Jeff Hannusch but as he explains today, the brilliance of my fellow Associate Editor Jon Newlin so intimidated him that he refrained from pegging his writings with his real name. Since I had known Newlin since I was 16 and carpooled with him through many of life’s adventures in my pale green Mustang, I accepted Newlin’s nuclear-powered brain as simply part of the local landscape, like the Rockery Inn or the Harvey Tunnel.
Jeff, in those days, was driving a white ’60 Thunderbird and always dressed in a very hip, thrift store manner. He was a competitive runner. Unhealthy substances did not enter his body. He was (and is) a serious record collector. This is a sickness. One of the side effects of this disease is that the collector becomes privy to a lot of arcane knowledge about musical performers. Collectors argue over what color somebody’s first record label was and whether or not the performer was related to that particular trombonist who might be the same guy who played in Ray Charles’ band for three weeks in 1959. Maybe.
So eventually Jeff found the courage to be Jeff, and under that name he has written many articles about the arcane world of New Orleans music, as well as liner notes for a multitude of record albums. In 1985, his first book, I Hear You Knockin’: The Sound of New Orleans Rhythm and Blues, was published. His second collection of music stories, The Soul of New Orleans: A Legacy of Rhythm and Blues has recently been published by Swallow Press of Ville Platte.
I have spent many enjoyable hours reading this book. Because I know Jeff so well and somewhat understand his curious temperament and appreciate the constraints of his scholarship, I find much of the book very amusing. For example, the reader has no idea that the interview (originally published in Elle) with the Neville Brothers was conducted, at the Nevilles’ management’s insistence, via fax machine, not exactly a technique that lends itself to candid confessions.
Jeff’s deadpan style of telling stories sometimes ranks with the prose of Woody Allen. One after another, New Orleans rhythm and blues performers achieve slight success, barely grazing the pop charts, then there’s a mysterious calamity, the performer is reduced to security guard or bus driver and inevitably, there’s the triumphant comeback, thrilling a new innocent generation. Except the day after the comeback, they die from cancer.
Even worse, nobody’s ever heard their name. As Jeff writes, “Being a backup musician is a lot like being an offensive lineman on a football team. There are always people behind you getting more money and recognition, but there is a sense of pride in knowing that without your hard work, they couldn’t pass or run the ball successfully.”
Concerning the celebrated Dew Drop Inn drag queen emcee Patsy Vidalia (born Irving Ale in Vacherie), Jeff writes: “Irving chose the professional name Patsy Valdalia [sic], an adaptation of Vidalia, Louisiana’s sweet onion.” Of course, the sweet onions come from Vidalia, Georgia. Fear not—a sentence or two later, Cosimo Matassa opines that “Vidalia” is an ancient French Quarter term for men in solicitation of prostitutes. Patsy Vidalia, true to tragic New Orleans form, made his/her last appearance at a “Gay Ball” featuring Earl King and B.B. Daddy, attempted a career as nurse’s aide and died at home after losing a personal injury lawsuit against a grocery store.
The Fats Domino story is told in detail. Here’s the most successful of all New Orleans rhythm and blues artists, his arm adorned with a watch studded with 352 diamonds. In 1958, he builds a “$60,000 mansion” right in the middle of some of the Ninth Ward’s funkiest shotguns. “It’s not that I don’t like other cities, but I’d just as soon stay home in New Orleans when I can,” Domino explains. When President Clinton invites him to the White House to accept a National Medal of Arts award, Domino doesn’t sense that the time is “right” so he sends his daughter to pick up the medal.
Interspersed with the book’s musical profiles (dedicated to such famed musicians as Champion Jack Dupree, Tommy Ridgley, Mac (Dr. John) Rebennack and Eddie Bo, as well as such relative obscurities as Jewel King, Willie West and C.P. Love) are some extraordinary bits of ephemera—a business card for the local Musical Contracting Agency (“For All Union Bands: White—Colored”); a publicity shot of Fats Domino, Slim Whitman, Jayne Mansfield and record magnate Lew Chudd; dance instructions for “The Original Popeye” (“Put both hands on the hips…”); a photo of Prince La La gazing into a crystal ball; and a poster for Pigmeat Markham’s 1963 Municipal Auditorium show, a recital promising trophies to be awarded to such nominees as Bernadine Washington, Cookie Gabriel, Irma Thomas, Chris Kenner, Smiley Lewis, Danny White, Ernie K-Doe, the Turbans and virtually every other New Orleans rhythm and blues performer of the period.
Although it may not be of much concern to music fans, Jeff has a very casual way with words. The concepts of spelling, punctuation and grammar are but concepts to him. No editor was allowed to examine his book before it was published. I volunteered but was rejected (he thanks me in the “Acknowledgements” and spells my name incorrectly!). There are two schools of thought concerning this: you can enjoy the book, warts and all, much the same as Louis Armstrong’s semi-literate, non-grammatical memoirs. Many of the great New Orleans musicians couldn’t read a note of music, played out-of-tune instruments and sang like mating bullfrogs. It’s funky…it’s New Orleans…it’s the aesthetics of decadence. In today’s politically correct world, the strict grammarian wades through a dangerous swamp of hypersensitivity.
The other, more prim school says that commas have a purpose and that faultless information is what the scholar desires. Given that this book will end up in libraries and accepted as gospel, correct spellings and dates should have been paramount. Roland Stone (“The singingest white dude I’ve ever heard,” in Aaron Neville’s words) did not work at his uncle’s laundry—the business belonged to his parents. I know because I knew Roland, his parents and his son, today a Metairie physician. The niece of the Dew Drop Inn’s owner says her uncle didn’t allow drugs and prostitution at the place although it was legendary for both and James Booker was busted on the premises for possession of heroin. I know because I’ve read the arrest record and Booker himself told me the story one day as we were cruising down LaSalle Street.
Despite my criticisms, I love Jeff’s book. He is a sincere champion of the besieged fortress of New Orleans rhythm and blues and a true friend to the wonderful New Orleans artists he heralds. He is not afraid to announce the demise of the music and theorize that the downfall is partially the responsibility of our beloved musicians: “Unfortunately, for some, the [Jazz] Festival simply became another payday. Too many artists showed up unprepared with unrehearsed bands, and stumbled through shoddy sets. Unfortunately, some artists alienated past, present and future fans, and did a disservice to the musical tradition they helped create.” The Soul of New Orleans illustrates what a grand, glorious enterprise that creation was.
I LIKE IKE
Izear Luster “Ike” Turner, one of the True Fathers of rock ‘n’ roll and a guitarist without peer, will perform at Tipitina’s on January 19 with his band, the Kings of Rhythm. My sources reveal that the Jazz Festival wouldn’t book Ike because he doesn’t exactly subscribe to Feminist Orthodoxy. As Ike told me in an interview last summer: “The only thing I can say, man, is that I did a lot of things that I’m proud of in my life and I did a lot of things that I regret in my life. I would say this: that movie [What’s Love Got To Do With It] is in no way close to me. Tina didn’t like the movie.” To paraphrase Jesus, no stoned music fans should be casting stones at musicians. Or something like that.
