Luther Kent, known for a big soulful voice and his horn-based group Luther Kent & Trick Bag, passed away Friday, August 16, 2024, of congestive heart failure. He was 76.

Born Kent Rowell on General Pershing Street in New Orleans, he moved to Baton Rouge at age 13 with his widowed mother.

Kent was influenced by artists such as Bobby “Blue” Bland, Etta James and Ray Charles. Kent began singing professionally when he was 14, and called his first band Dale Murray and The Barons.

Kent was a part of the New Orleans music scene for over 60 years. From his teenage days doing shows with Danny White, Benny Spellman and Ernie K-Doe, he wound up working with the commerically-successful group Blood Sweat & Tears for several years. In the 1970s and 1980s, he was a fixture on Bourbon Street with his horn-heavy band, Trick Bag, which was known for their big blues sound.

Interviewed in 1998 by Jeff Hannusch for OffBeat Magazine, Kent said: “I grew up in New Orleans, but I’ve lived in Baton Rouge since I graduated from high school. When I was working 40 to 50 weeks a year in New Orleans I kept an apartment.”

About working on Bourbon Street, Kent reminisced: “You know, I’ll tell you, I walked down there the other night and it’s just not the same place it used to be. It used to be that on every block there were great musicians. Now it’s just total bullshit, and the reason its total bullshit is because the club owners aren’t paying any money. Everybody’s trying to undercut each other down there to get a gig too. Somebody told me that a lot of clubs were only paying the musicians eight dollars an hour. That’s a joke. What they don’t realize is that the clubs are putting a self-destruction trip on themselves. I don’t even like going to Bourbon Street anymore because you can’t hear any real New Orleans music. The closest thing I think you can get to it though is probably at the Maison Bourbon where they play traditional jazz.”

About the Olde Absinthe House on Bourbon Street, Kent said: “There was so much good music in that room. When we first put the big band together, that’s the room we put it together in. We worked there 18 months [late 1970s]; we played the late-night shift. Everybody that played concerts in New Orleans wound up there after their gig and sat in with us.

Asked about what music he listened to growing up: “I grew up listening to what I called regional music. The stuff that came out of New Orleans I thought were hits everywhere. Some of it was but most of it was just contained regionally. But I was hip to whatever was coming out of New Orleans. I mean I was listening to Bobby Bland, Ray Charles and James Brown, but New Orleans music was my biggest influence.”

In 2008 Vetter Communications released The Bobby Bland Songbook album by Kent. “He’s without question the greatest blues singer of all time,” declares Kent. “There isn’t anyone even close. I’ve appeared with him three times and it was a great honor.”

Interviewed in 2009 by Jeff Hannusch for OffBeat, Kent talked about Bobby Bland’s first solo album Two Steps from the Blues. “That album just blew my mind. It was completely different from all the other music that was out there at the time. It was sophisticated. Every song on that album was a classic. The arrangements, the material, Bobby’s vocals—nothing has surpassed that album since it was recorded. I used to spend hours listening to it and just looking at the photos on the cover. I literally wore three copies of that album out. I still get goose bumps listening to it. It’s timeless.”

Kent recalls going to see the Bobby “Blue” Bland revue. “I was 13 at the time. He played at a White club in Baton Rouge on North Boulevard called the Golden Slipper. I remember Wayne Bennett was on guitar and Mel Jackson was on trumpet. Then Al “T.N.T.” Braggs came on stage. I remember thinking to myself, ‘What the #@%#@ is this? I paid my money to see Bobby Bland.’ But he tore the house down. He was a real showman—danced all over the place. Later, I found out Al wrote some songs for Bobby, and I got to work with him with the Chickenhawks. He set the audience up for Bobby. All Bobby had to do was stand on stage and sing. He didn’t even have to lift his pinky ring.”

When asked about a favorite Bland song, Kent demurs. “That’s a hard question because there’s so many. ‘Don’t Cry No More,’ ‘Who Will The Next Fool Be,’ ‘Little Boy Blue,’ ‘Further On Up The Road,’ ‘I Pity The Fool,’—there’s just so many. I don’t know if he ever made a bad record.”

Regarding Kent’s album The Bobby Bland Songbook, five of the 12 songs were originally on the Two Steps from the Blues album. Kent said “We weren’t trying to duplicate these songs. That would be impossible. There’s only one Bobby Bland, and only one Joe Scott. But by having Wardell Quezergue arrange it, recording it in New Orleans and with a lot of New Orleans musicians, we wanted to give the material a New Orleans feel. Also, like Wardell told me, ‘Luther, look you’ve got to put your own stamp on these songs.’ My producer, Don Chesson, and myself handpicked each song. Cyril Vetter [VCC Records] was very open to the project. There are 19 different musicians on the CD (including Mac Rebennack, a.k.a. Dr. John, on keyboards), but it was an easy session and a lot of fun to record. Every song was done on the first, second or third take. David Farrell, a dear friend, (and alumnus of Studio in the Country and Ultrasonic Studio) mixed and mastered it.”

 

The following is the interview by John Wirt for the 2023 OffBeat Jazz Fest Bible™.

After 60 years on the bandstand, Luther Kent doesn’t often rehearse. Not even for his annual spot at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. When Kent, a.k.a. “Big” Luther Kent, and his 13-piece band, Trick Bag, play on Jazz Fest’s opening day, he’ll pick the songs he’s singing while he’s on stage performing. “Whatever feels right for the audience,” the blues, jazz and rhythm-and-blues singer said.

Kent has sung at nearly every Jazz Fest since 1979. His Blues Tent performance on Friday, April 28 will be his 43rd appearance at the festival. The nearly 75-year-old singer’s voice is strong despite decades of performing in smoke-filled rooms. “[It’s as] strong as it’s ever been,” he said. “I’ve been fortunate. I’ve never had any troubles with my voice.”

Since the 1960s, when Kent was a teenager performing as Duke Royal, he’s made a point of working with horns, instruments that are essential to the classic rhythm-and-blues and soul music he loves. Kent revels in the sonic force of trumpets, trombones and saxophones. “Give me the power,” he said.

But leading a nine-piece R&B horn band back in 1965, in the midst of the guitar-wielding British invasion of America, made being a White rhythm-and-blues band challenging. “There were only a couple of [White] clubs that would book an R&B band—Coconut Grove in Baton Rouge and a place in New Orleans called Soul City,” Kent remembered. “So, the rest of the week, I worked at Black nightclubs and universities. I did that because of the kind of music that we did.”

At the height of the civil rights era that led to the federally-mandated end of Louisiana’s state-sanctioned segregation, Kent’s White band wasn’t always quickly accepted by Black audiences. “It wasn’t cool with them at first,” he said. “They would look at us kind of funny—but the minute we started playing, they knew we were there for the right deal. That always overcomes everything.”

Wardell Quezergue, the late New Orleans conductor and arranger, witnessed Kent win over a Black audience during a gig they performed together. “Luther stole their heart,” Quezergue said in 2009. “For a White artist doing blues, I don’t hear anyone any better than him. He puts his heart into things, and soul.”

A native of New Orleans, Kent was 13-years-old when his widowed mother moved her family to Baton Rouge. But by then he’d thoroughly absorbed his deeply musical hometown’s rhythm and soul. It helped that Kent’s older brother performed in a band that played New Orleans rhythm-and-blues favorites as well as the music of such national stars as Ray Charles. “I used to go to gigs with them when I was kid, because I loved the music so much,” Kent recalled. “I’d go sit on the side of the stage and listen to them play all night long.”

Kent’s love for music led to a lifetime of performing and inevitable ups and downs. His near-misses at a bigger career included a doomed record deal during the early 1970s with Lou Adler’s Ode Records [as a member of Cold Grits]. Twenty years later, Kent was riding high when he sang the role of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.’s popular but controversial cartoon character, Joe Camel. But Joe Camel vanished from Reynolds’ advertising portfolio in 1997 following years of criticism from anti-smoking groups. Another promising high-profile project Kent participated in, the 1990 TV musical-crime series, Cop Rock, was canceled after only 13 episodes.

Kent’s career highlights include two 1970s stints with Blood, Sweat, & Tears and his 2009 album, The Bobby Bland Songbook. Quezergue—the masterful arranger for Professor Longhair’s “Big Chief,” Robert Parker’s “Barefootin’,” the Dixie Cups’ “Ike Iko,” Earl King’s “Trick Bag” and the concert film Deacon John’s Jump Blues—arranged the Bland tribute album. For Kent, Quezergue was an extraordinary collaborator and a special friend. “Wardell was a beautiful cat,” he said.

Featuring 12 classics from the Bland catalog, The Bobby Bland Songbook took Kent back to the music that compelled him to sing. He was 12-years-old when he first heard Bland’s recording of “Don’t Cry No More” playing on a corner bar jukebox on Washington Avenue. He’d never heard anything like it.

Bland, a rhythm and blues-influenced blues star, and soul singer James Brown became Kent’s bedrock inspirations. “The Live at the Apollo album by James Brown, the first time I heard that, it completely blew my mind,” Kent recalled. “That and Two Steps from the Blues by Bobby Bland. I used to wear those two albums out.”

At the beginning of his career, Kent wore his voice out imitating Brown. “That about killed me, but I loved doing it,” he said. “I did it for a good while, and I had a band that lent itself to that style of music. A nine-piece band with a four-piece horn section, . People really liked it a lot, but I never did it because it was popular.”

Kent released a gospel album in 1996 teaming up with John Lee & the Heralds of Christ. The album also featured Allen Toussaint and Pete Fountain.

Kent toured Italy in 2006 with Italian blues guitarist Robi Zonca and his band. The show was recorded and released as an album, Magic Box.

Kent frequently sang as a guest with the The Dukes of Dixieland and issued several album on the Leisure Jazz label.

When talking about retirement, Kent said: “Well, there ain’t no retirement home for blues singers that I know about. I can’t see myself doing anything else, as long as I’m physically able I’ll be singing. At least that’s what I’m hoping.”

Kent had quadruple bypass surgery in 1996.

Luther Kent is survived by his wife of more than 60 years, Joan.

Facebook tributes include:

Louisiana lost an amazing well known Blues Legend, rest in peace my old friend Luther Kent you will be missed.—Rockin Dopsie Jr.

This morning, I received some of the hardest news I’ve ever had to endure; Luther Kent was far more than a friend, mentor, or someone I looked up to; He was one of the most influential people in my life and career, and without him and his selfless love I would be less than half of the human being and musician that I am today. I am going to miss my dearest friend more than I can put into words or ever express. I love you Big Luther, fly high and keep the heavenly choirs chops up until we get there, I know the horn players in Heaven rejoice to have you leading them in song.—Jonathon Long

Been a sad few days in the  Louisiana music community. We lost another legend today… Luther Kent. May he Rest in Peace.—Mem Shannon

R.I.P. Luther Kent. I always thought Luther was a powerful blues singer and had the privilege of playing with his big band at the Old Absinthe Bar back in the late 70’s, early 80’s. He had an unmistakable voice and style which is a great accomplishment for any vocalist. Very sad news. Luther, you will be sorely missed.—Ricky Sebastian