There are huge chunks of New Orleans’ musical past that seem destined to remain shrouded in mystery, yet none has proven more strangely elusive than its once-fertile, now-forgotten hillbilly music scene. Nearly every clue of the culture has vanished in such a way that it’s almost as if it never existed, which is perhaps one of the reasons why Jody Leavins — as he is identified on his first single — has remained such an enigma. The country singer cut the original version of “Mardi Gras Mambo” more than a year before the Hawkettes etched it into local history.
Like the scene from which he emerged, details on Leavins are spotty, right down to the spelling of his name. His small discography offers Levins, Leavins and Leviens, while he recorded the brilliant “The Devil Paid Me (With A Mother-In-Law)” as Joedy Lea for Nashville’s Speed label. Steel guitarist Junior Pugh, who played with Leavins during his entire tenure in New Orleans, confirms the actual spelling as Joedy Leavins.
Like many country and rhythm and blues artists of his generation, Leavins absorbed the differing styles that he heard then formulated his own, one that anticipated the arrival of rock ’n’ roll. He first surfaced in 1947 playing drums with the like-minded Doyle Turner’s National Hillbillies, a Panama City, Florida-based band that—besides mixing their country with R&B, jazz and anything else that struck their fancy—employed a black pianist and turned down a spot on the Grand Ole Opry after being told they couldn’t use drums. Hillbillies’ Guitarist Bernice Turner met Leavins when he auditioned for the band shortly after she and her husband Doyle left Hank Williams’ Drifting Cowboys in 1946.
“We always knew Joedy as ‘Junior,’” she says, adding yet another name to the list. “He played drums with us for a long time but he also played guitar. In our day, you played whatever the hell musician didn’t show up! I played drums when we didn’t have a drummer.
“We played the American Legion in Panama City, we played other clubs, we played street dances and we played a fishing boat going over to Shell Island at night. We had a group down there ’til nineteen-and-forty-eight.”
That year, the Turners took their band to Arkansas, while Leavins stayed in Florida before moving to New Orleans sometime around the turn of the decade. Likely drawn by the city’s vibrant post-war country scene, he met Pugh, who migrated from the Mississippi Delta, in the early ’50s. With Pugh on steel, Leavins put together a band that boasted renowned guitarists Alvin Lovell and Huey Bourgeois as well as pianist Anthony “Tonto” Rawecki, and began packing them in at the Cadillac Club on Poland and St. Claude avenues.
“Tonto was one hell of a piano player,” remembers steel guitarist Harold Cavallero, who grew up just a few blocks away on Independence Street. “I knew them all fairly well from being a musician, and we used to hang together at different places. If we were playing at the Silver Star and they were playing at the Cadillac Club and they got out an hour earlier than us, they’d all come over and we’d jam. That’s how I got to know Joedy. And of course, I sat in with him for Junior on a couple of occasions when Junior couldn’t make it.”
A powerful singer who delivered his vocals in a relaxed, Tex Williams style, Leavins’ local recording career kicked off in December, 1953 when Imperial Records released “Hey! Liberace” backed with “Tall Lean Gal From New Orleans” and the local Sapphire imprint issued “Jingle Bells Boogie” coupled with the infectious, R&B-charged “Mardi Gras Mambo.” Showcasing both the versatility and laid-back skill of Leavins’ stage band, it seems likely that all four songs were cut at the same session, supervised as they were by Sapphire’s Frankie Adams, who placed two of sides with Imperial and released the other pair. Despite engineer Cosimo Matassa’s usual superb live mix, an irresistible beat and a killer sax part, “Mardi Gras Mambo” didn’t do much during the 1954 Carnival season, which is perhaps why its co-writers—Sapphire partners Adams and Lou Welsch and disc jockey Jack “The Cat” Elliott—were so anxious to have the Hawkettes cut it a few months later.
“Hey! Liberace” was a different story. “They played that thing all over Louisiana,” remembers Pugh. It was a regional hit for Texas western swing artist Charlie Adams, who covered it—also for Imperial—at the insistence of producer Don Law. Cut within days of Leavins’ original, Adams didn’t even know who Liberace was when he put the song to wax. Meanwhile, Leavins wound up being summoned by the outlandish pianist—who reportedly loved the leering tune—to one of his appearances at the Municipal Auditorium.
“Back then everyone was making fun of Liberace,” explains Matassa, “he was a big thing on TV with his candelabra.”
Cavallero recalls that Tonto wrote “Hey! Liberace;” Pugh says it was Leavins, yet the writer’s credits on both sides mention only Matassa and Adams. “Why Frankie didn’t have Leavins’ name on those songs I don’t know,” says Matassa, “because we all probably sat down and worked them out together. I was just a second guesser on most of that stuff, but he was kind enough to put me on as a co-writer.” Similarly, Leavins’ name is rarely seen in the writer’s credits to “Mardi Gras Mambo,” though it seems certain that, at the very least, he and Adams collaborated on it.
Other titles followed for Sapphire, including a version of “Ma Cherie,” but Leavins and his excellent band remained more of a live staple than a recording act. Around 1958 he, Pugh and drummer Eddie Ladner pulled out of New Orleans for a short stint in Panama City. “We went down there to play a six week gig,” laughs Pugh, “and ended up playing five years! Joedy stayed down there and he wound up buying a nightclub out on the beach, but I came back to New Orleans. And that’s when (famed steel guitarist) Julian Tharpe started playing with him.”
According to Pugh, Tharpe recorded and released an LP with Leavins that wound up being his final recording. “It was called Alligator Man. He cut it about 12 or 15 years ago in the late ’80s or early ’90s.”
Leavins passed away not long afterwards, never having been interviewed. One wonders what he thought about the success of “Mardi Gras Mambo” and hence, his crucial contribution to New Orleans culture.
“If he ever got the breaks,” concludes Pugh, “he would have went real big. But I don’t know…I guess it’s not destined for some people, you know?”
Author’s note: “Jingle Bells Boogie” and “Mardi Gras Mambo” are available on Legendary Labels Of Louisiana: The Best Of Sapphire (Night Train).Special thanks to John Broven, Dave Sax, Andrew Brown and John Bonvillian for their invaluable assistance with this piece. Anyone with additional information on Jody Leavins or the New Orleans country scene should email me at [email protected].
