13 / 60
ROUSES.COM
11
MusIC
Cosimo Matassa laid down
“Good Rockin’ Tonight” in wax
at his J & M Recording Studio
at the Corner of Rampart
and Dumaine in the French
Quarter.
It might have been called jump
blues when Roy Brown walked into the
studio to record it, but it was rock and roll
by the time he left.
It sounded really black. It was about sex.
Elvis later recorded it. It contained the
two essential phrases in the rock pantheon:
“Let’s rock” and “Gonna hold my baby
tight.” Brown once had to flee Texas for
shagging a club owner’s girlfriend. And his
mother’s name was True Love Brown.
If these are not unassailable qualifications
for rock and roll, then roll over, Beethoven.
And seriously, does anyone really believe the
music genre that scandalized a nation and
preachers would come to call “the devil’s
music” could have been invented anywhere
other
than New Orleans? Seriously.
Now, what about the Blues?
Popular mythology tells us it was created
by Robert Johnson after selling his soul
to the devil (him again!) at the notorious
Crossroads on Highway 61 in the
Mississippi Delta.
And if you’re the type who thinks Babe
Ruth really called his shot or that Reese’s
Peanut Butter Cups were invented when
a guy eating chocolate bumped into a guy
eating peanut butter then, sure – believing
the Blues was born of a supernatural spell
cast by the Dark Angel is hardly a stretch.
But over the state line in Baton Rouge,
men named Leadbelly, Slim Harpo and
Lightnin’ Slim were making the same
kind of music as Johnson. And everyone
knows a Bluesman’s stature is directly
proportional to the awesomeness of
his nickname.
And I’ll let you in on another
secret our friends up north have
been keeping for years. In the
Windy City, important influences
have shaped the blues into its own
brand. And that’s great, bully for
them, but how do you explain where
Buddy Guy, the key player in the
development of Chicago Blues, the man
whom Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan
and Eric Clapton claimed as their primary
musical influence is actually from?
Do you want a hint?
Now, what about Country Music? All you
ever hear is Nashville this, Nashville that,
Nashville Nashville Nash-freakin’-ville.
Twaddle!
Sure, the Grand Ole Opry technically
started before The Louisiana Hayride
began in Shreveport. Some thirty or more
years before, but that’s just a technicality
that traditionalists and literalists employ to
distract folks from the truth.
And the truth is that The Louisiana
Hayride was the true authentic showcase
of the Country & Western ethos, a venue
of considerably more — shall we say —
“character.”
The music was louder and raunchier, the
musicians were wilder and the audiences were
drunker. When Hank Williams
got kicked out of the Grand Ole
Opry, the Hayride picked him up
on the spot.
I mean,
who
kicks Hank
Williams off a country music
program and pretends to have
any credibility? Not convinced?
Then how about this: It was at
the Louisiana Hayride, not the
Grand Ole Opry, where Elvis
Presley made his American radio
debut. It was at the Louisiana
Hayride, not the Grand Ole
Opry, where Elvis made his
American television debut.
And it was after a particularly spirited
performance at the Louisiana Hayride,
not the Grand Ole Opry, where the house
announcer attempted to restore order in the
auditorium by uttering the most famous
line in music history: “Elvis has left the
building.”
Neither popular music — nor American
culture – would ever be the same. And what
more evidence do you need to believe that
that Louisiana, not Tennessee, and certainly
not Texas, is where country is king.
Now, you could quibble and say: That’s a
great story and all, but Elvis was never even
marginally considered a Country artist.
And I would respond by agreeing. That
you’re quibbling. So let’s move on.
Country music actually has two distinct,
discrete genres. One is the stuff of legend and
lore.The other is what you hear on the radio.
“James Brown got all his steps from me.”
—Ernie K-Doe
The late Ernie K-Doe may not have loved his Mother-
in-Law, but like Louis Armstrong before him, K-Doe
definitely loved red beans. His wife, Antoinette, was
famous for her gumbo and her red beans and rice, which
she served at K-Doe's Mother-In-Law Lounge.
Photo by
Sandy Maillho