New Orleans, like most of the rest of the country, enjoys Santa Claus as a favorite icon of the Christmas season. However, the Crescent City, being its usual quirky self, also favors its own Yuletide personalities, the snowman-like Mr. Bingle and, yes, trumpeter, singer and the always jolly Kermit Ruffins. When the holiday draws near, Ruffins is quick to don a Santa hat and as soon as early November he’s been known to fill his club, Kermit’s Treme Mother-In-Law Lounge, with his favorite Christmas tunes much to the amusement of those coming through the door.
Ruffins was born on December 19, the same date as the legendary Professor Longhair, so growing up, his birthday went hand-in-hand with his family’s holiday celebrations. His birthday Christmas festivities have continued into his adulthood and professional life. Through the decades, his seasonal events have been held at house parties and in clubs like The Little People’s Place, Donna’s, Vaughan’s, Bullets and Le Bon Temps Roule or wherever he was performing around town at time.
His biggest and most memorable birthday Christmas show took place more than 20 years ago at the House of Blues. It was a hilarious night with the stage set up with a living room ensemble complete with a bar and someone actually serving drinks. Ruffins and company, all wearing pajamas, were at their most casually warmest and swung the night away. “Everybody was walking around like we weren’t doing a show,” Ruffins remembers laughing.
On Thursday, December 5, Kermit Ruffins & the Barbecue Swingers will return to the House of Blues in a sort of reenactment of that night with all the stage fixins’ and carrying on. As a twist, Ruffins, who turns 60 this year, plans on wearing a smoking jacket and, in big boss style, relaxing with a very large cigar.
“Almost everybody who comes in the bar, they say, ‘What’s up boss?” Ruffins explains and as usual starts laughing and adds that those who greet him this way aren’t necessarily employees. The members of the Barbecue Swingers are in that number of the many who shout out with a “Hey, boss.”
In a funny way, what could be described as a “big shot” image is similar to that once captured of a three-year-old Kermit in a bathrobe and as he describes the photo as him having “a big old plastic cigar in my mouth.” He’s been told that the whole family would be laughing at “little Kermit.”
Though Ruffins, who turns 60 this year, has certainly matured as a musician and a man, he credits simply being on stage for his young at heart attitude. “I’m just as silly as I was when I was with the Rebirth,” he offers referring to forming the Rebirth Brass Band with Frazier brothers, tuba man Phil and bass drummer Keith as teenagers. “You wake up in the morning and you cannot wait to hit the stage. So, you’re all okey-dokey all day long because you have a bunch of fans that have never seen you before.”
Ruffins’ continued love of his experiences as a youngster, excited by the festivities surrounding the annual combination of his birthday and Christmas begins with his family.
“Coming up in the Lower 9th Ward we were really traditional,” Ruffins says. “I was lucky, I was the first-born [grandchild]. My grandfather’s name was Kermit Ruffins, and he was born in 1908, so I was blessed that we would go fishing and crabbing and do all that fun stuff on Saturdays and we would get the crabs ready for Christmas. After we’d left the fishing pond, we’d go in the backyard and clean all the crabs [freeze them for gumbo] and get everything ready for the holidays. There was a lot prepared ahead of time. I really think about that a lot as I’m older.”
The family home at 1419 Jourdan Avenue, was, naturally lit up with Christmas lights on the porch while, says Kermit, “Eggnog was freakin’ rollin’. It was a real traditional Black Christmas in the Lower Ninth Ward—we made it our culture, our own loving things. Our Christmas music was old school R&B—James Brown, Michael Jackson, The Temptations. We’d be home on Christmas Eve in our Pjs with the radio on and my dad had a reel-to-reel recorder.”
Kermit was 14 when his father gave him and his brother trumpets at the end of the school year. Soon thereafter, he added another tradition to his personal celebrations. He remembers going out on the porch and playing classic songs like “Silent Night” and “Deck the Halls” that he’d learned from a high school play. “It was a quiet, quiet neighborhood—nothing but bullfrogs and crickets.”
It’s possible that beyond his family and probably the guys in his band few have seen Kermit not wearing some kind of hat. Usually, he sports a fedora though lately he’s been seen donning what might be described as an over-sized newsboy cap, which he explains is called a big apple. Soon, or if not by now, however, that will more than likely be replaced by his trademark Santa hat.
“Growing up we all had Santa hats,” he says of those in his family. “Then when I started the Rebirth [with the Frazier brothers] and Christmas came around and because of my family’s influence and Phil’s family’s influence, we all wore Santa hats. In most brass bands at least one guy will wear one. I stuff mine with paper so it will stand up.”
In 2009, Ruffins released his hip holiday album Have a Crazy Cool Christmas on his long-time label Basin Street Records. It included two originals, the title cut and the very timely “A Saints Christmas,” on which he declares, “All I want for Christmas is the Saints in the Super Bowl.” Soon thereafter, in February 2010, the home team made his wish and ours come true.
“I like to play ‘Christmas Time Is Here’ because it reminds me of Charlie Brown [the animated “A Charlie Brown Christmas”],” says Ruffins of tunes that remain on his Yuletide play list. His go-to album during the holidays is New Orleans’ own, the legendary trumpeter Wynton Marsalis’ Crescent City Christmas Card.
A wonderfully genial host and an attraction wherever he plays, Ruffins was a natural to go into the music club business. His first venture was the Caldonia on the corner of St. Philip and North Robinson streets. It was the second incarnation of a club of that name after the original, as well as much of the Treme neighborhood, was razed to create Armstrong Park. He dubbed it Kermit Ruffins’ Music Hall and he still glows when he remembers the nights when ace musicians like drummers Herlin Riley or Shannon Powell and the late great pianist Henry Butler played there. It’s where he met Dirty Rice, a man who would become and still remains his right-hand man.
“Rice is from the neighborhood, and he was a guy that always wanted to help and make a few bucks at the same time. We call him the general manager around here,” Ruffins adds.
From St. Philip Street and North Robertson, Ruffins moved on to Sidney’s Saloon on St. Bernard Avenue. Two exciting major events—the election of President Barack Obama in 2008 and the Saints’ Super Bowl win in 2010—occurred when he was the proprietor of Sidney’s. On Obama’s election night, Kermit had the band play out on the sidewalk in front of the club. The song of the night was Johnny Nash’s “I Can See Clearly Now,” which Ruffins started performing regularly since Obama used it as he walked on stage at the Democratic Convention.
A huge Saints fan, Kermit and the rest of the crowd at Sidney’s, went wild when the Saints came from behind to beat the Indianapolis Colts. Wow.
Ruffins’ grill was always smokin’ on the back of his pickup truck outside of his gigs at spots like Vaughan’s and Joe’s Cozy Corner. He cooked for the crowd at Sidney’s on Saints Sundays with pots and trays filled with red beans, rice, turkey necks or whatever was on the “menu.” However, he says he always wanted a real restaurant, so he moved to Basin Street, which had a full kitchen, and served up some delicious food, including his special whole trout, at a spot he called Kermit’s Treme Speakeasy.
The Mother-In-Law Lounge on North Claiborne Avenue, initially owned by New Orleans great R&B vocalist Ernie K-Doe and on his death by his wife Antoinette, became available and gratefully for the New Orleans music community Ruffins was able to obtain it and keep it in “the family.” For a time, he owned both the Lounge and the Speakeasy during the same time while licensing issues were worked out. The Mother-In-Law has been Ruffins’ most successful venture as a bar owner.
Again, Ruffins was influenced by his family in digging the bar scene. “When I was a kid, maybe 10 years old, in the Lower 9th Ward, my mama was running the 5106 Bar on North Claiborne Avenue,” Ruffins recalls. “There was a barbershop next door with a window. If you were getting your hair cut, sitting in the chair, you could see all the patrons in that bar. I remember always sitting there almost every other weekend and watching the people having all that fun.”
Other spots where his mother worked and where Kermit observed “good times happening” were at the Morris Lounge, where Fats Domino would stop by almost every day, and The Underground on North Galvez.
Ruffins had family in the 6th Ward a connection that eventually allowed him to attended the Treme’s Joseph S. Clark Sr. High School and hook up with the Fraziers.
“Imagine me coming to the Treme and walking down North Robertson Street and seeing a bunch of bars,” Ruffins recalls with the amazement of the experience remaining in his voice. “I am so hyped about bars at that point because it was maybe a Tuesday, and everybody was outside like it was Mardi Gras day. There’s a funeral home, there’s a bar, a funeral home, a bar—I couldn’t believe what the hell I’m seeing. Bars and bands, I just lost my freakin’ mind so, I had a good idea what to do.”
As it happened, the Rebirth recorded its first album, released on the prestigious Arhoolie label, 1984’s Here to Stay, right there on North Robertson Street at the Grease Lounge, which is now the Candlelight Lounge.
Rumors have been flying that Ruffins is closing the Mother-In-Law or perhaps better said, selling the business. They didn’t come out of thin air as he got the chatter going himself.
“I went on Instagram and I was like, ‘I don’t know if I’m going to be able to hold on more than five more minutes,” he admits, adding however that at the time it was fact. However, about a week later when John Robinson, the well-regarded friend of Kermit’s and the Treme community who donated the lot that is now Tuba Fats Square, came into the bar and said, “I saw your cry for help,” Kermit remembers he couldn’t stop laughing. By then, he had considered the matter more seriously.
I said to myself, ‘Kermit, hold on until after Jazz Fest then make your decision. There’s the Super Bowl, Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest. It’s a lot to think about but we’re going to keep on keepin’ on.”
Like many of those loyal to New Orleans music and those in the music business community, Ruffins has been spending his own money to keep things going. That there are now so many more music clubs than there were back in the day, he sees as a mixed blessing. It can mean more gigs for musicians though for the Mother-In-Law it meant fewer locals were coming out on a regular basis as they used to do.
Ideally, Kermit, who has had at least one person expressed some interest in purchasing the Mother-In-Law, envisions himself playing at the club and continuing to sit at his spot at the corner of the bar drinking a Bud Light and enjoying himself. The plus would be, of course, that he wouldn’t have the responsibility of ownership.
The Mother-In-Law continues to boast a solid line-up of live music four nights a week with Ruffins leading his band on Monday and Saturday nights, trumpeter Irvin Mayfield, who these days is playing guitar, banjo and piano on Tuesdays with Kermit acting as a special guest. Ruffins is back onboard for an 8 p.m. show on Saturdays with master Herlin Riley at the drums. Weather permitting, most of these performances take place on the outdoor stage in the lot adjacent to the club. Turns out that local rapper HaSizzle‘s Thursday night jam is the club’s hottest night. Surprisingly, the club is dark on Mondays and Fridays although it is available for private parties. Ruffins’ motto is: “Don’t open on days you’re not going to make any money.” Sundays, of course, is Saints watching days on the big screen in the club’s bar area. “Who Dat!”
Ruffins has pretty much ditched late night shows since the 20 years he jumped at Vaughan’s until the wee hours. The exception is his Friday night gigs at Frenchmen Street’s Blue Nile where he kicks off at 11 p.m.
He also picks and chooses when it comes to traveling for shows. “I decided to just not to take everything,” he says with his decision based on financial awards. “I just take the big gigs—money gigs, all different things, fests, clubs, parties.”
“I had so much fun with Rebirth for 15 summers in a row and during the winter too,” Ruffins remembers when the Rebirth Brass Band was a hot commodity. “We were so blessed to come out at that time and had the opportunity to travel early on to Japan and Europe. It was hard, non-stop,” he recalls adding, “I’m a homebody.”
He gives the late Allison Miner big credits for managing the band filled with sometimes rowdy young guys and making certain they were receiving royalties. When Ruffins left to pursue his solo career, he says Miner steered him in the direction of Justice Records for which he recorded World on a String, his first album as leader and two subsequent releases on the label before moving to Basin Street Records.
Sitting at the Mother-In-Law’s classic bar with a Bud Light nearby, Kermit Ruffins is as silly, as he puts it, amiable and thoughtful as ever. At age 60 however, he is seriously thinking about changing course. Major decisions lie ahead for Ruffins especially considering that he has owned and enjoyed owning a bar for most of his life.
A major goal for Ruffins is to perform his music with a symphony orchestra and he has already been reaching out to people such as composer, orchestrator, conductor and educator Jay Weigel to further the project. He intends to incorporate some 65 symphonic musicians for an in-studio recording. He also envisions sending the charts across the country for the use of other symphonies at live performances. Ruffins is very serious about getting this done and has been saving up to make sure it happens. He wouldn’t mind some further support and gives a shout out laughingly though seriously to the brilliant trumpeter and composer Terence Blanchard: “Kermit’s been looking for you!”
As Kermit says, “All aboard!”