Huey "Piano" Smith Huey "Piano" Smith and the Rocking Pneumonia Blues
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- catalog number: 00192959
- weight in Kg 0.45
Huey "Piano" Smith: Huey "Piano" Smith and the Rocking Pneumonia Blues
"I credit Huey with opening the door for funk, basically as we know it, in some ridiculously hip way, and putting it in the mainstream of the world's music": –DR. JOHN, 2011 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee
"Huey 'Piano' Smith stands tall as one of the major creators of New Orleans rhythm & blues. Drawing on meticulous research, John Wirt tells Smith's story here in terms of both joyous artistic achievements and grim, demoralizing exploitation. Huey 'Piano' Smith and the Rocking Pneumonia Blues illuminates the vital role of a great talent in an important chapter in Louisiana music history': –BEN SANDMEL, author of Ernie K-Doe: The R&B Emperor of New Orleans
Huey "Piano" Smith's musical legacy stands alongside that of fellow New Orleans legends Dr. John, Fats Domino, Ernie K-Doe, and Allen Toussaint. His 1957 classic, "Rocking Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu," made Billboard's top R&B singles chart, and hundreds of artists including Aerosmith, the Grateful Dead, the Beach Boys, Johnny Riv-ers, and Chubby Checker have recorded his songs. The first biography of the artist responsible for hits "Don't You Just Know It:' "High Blood Pressure:' and "Sea Cruise:' Huey "Piano" Smith and the Rocking Pneumonia Blues fol-lows the musician's extraordinary life from his Depression-era childhood to his teen years as a pianist for blues star Guitar Slim to his mainstream success in the 195os and '6os.
Drawing from extensive interviews and court records, author and journalist John Wirt also provides new insights on Smith's professional disappointments and financial struggles in the 198os and '9os as he battled over royalties from his most successful and profitable work. Throughout this intimate account, Wirt details Smith's significant impact on rock and roll history and underscores both the longevity of his music—which has entertained and inspired for over five decades—and the musician's personal endurance in the face of hard-ship and opposition.
JOHN WIRT has covered music, film, and entertainment for the Richmond Times-Dispatch, the Daytona Beach News-Journal, and The Advocate's Baton Rouge and New Orleans editions.
Front cover photograph by Michael P. Smith, 0 The Historic New Orleans Collection, 2007.01o3.1.801
Louisiana State University Press Baton Rouge 70808
Article properties: Huey "Piano" Smith: Huey "Piano" Smith and the Rocking Pneumonia Blues
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Interpret: Huey "Piano" Smith
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Album titlle: Huey "Piano" Smith and the Rocking Pneumonia Blues
- Language English
- Kategorie Biographies & Memoirs
- Einband Paperback
- Seiten 294
- ISBN-13 9780807152959
- Verleger The Louisiana State University Press
- Größe 15,3 x 2,3 x 23,1 cm
- ISBN-10 0807152951
- Autor John Wirt
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Artikelart Bücher/Books
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EAN: 9780807152959
- weight in Kg 0.45
Huey 'Piano' Smith and his Clowns
Don't You Just Know It
Our 1957 volume contained Huey’s irrepressible breakthrough hit Rockin’ Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Flu. Talking to 'Billboard' in 1959, Ace Records owner Johnny Vincent recalled that, when Smith broke, Ace was “operating out of my house and my pocket. We had our records pressed by Plastic Products up in Memphis. They had a truck that would go out with records, so I went up to Memphis and hitch-hiked a ride on that truck to the MOA [Music Operators of America] Convention in Chicago.
We kicked the record off up there. Then we came with ‘Don’t You Just Know It.’ We figured that after one big hit, the second would be a natural but all of a sudden we were sitting with 80,000 pressings in Memphis, and man I thought I was gonna have to eat them. Finally Dick Clark got hold of the record and started playing it. That’s what did it. He broke it for us.” When Don’t You Just Know It began to break in the early weeks of 1958, Vincent was offered up to $25,000 for the master by the vampiric quasi-major labels, ABC-Paramount and Mercury. According to Vincent, it was selling up to 75,000 copies a week by March.
“I don’t need to sell masters to make money,” Vincent said at the time. “I make out pretty well selling records. I just quit takin’ offers.” The lead vocalist on this record, as on Rockin’ Pneumonia, was Bobby Marchan, a cross-dresser who had initially fooled Vincent into believing that he was a woman. The real female vocalist is Gerri Hall, who would work with Smith and the Clowns for years. Years later, Hall told John Broven that the Clowns’ bus driver, Rudy Ray Moore, was always saying, “Don’t you know it, honey, don’t you just know it,” and that the Clowns wrote the remainder of the lyrics while traveling between Baltimore and Washington, DC. Coincidentally or not, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins claimed that Smith stole Don’t You Just Know It after seeing him perform it in Baltimore.
After spending some time on the road, Smith soon realized that people assumed the lead singer was Huey Smith, so he hired James Booker to play piano and let Marchan lead the road band, while he stayed in New Orleans.
Various - Blowing The Fuse 1958 - Classics That Rocked The Jukebox
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