Huey “Piano” Smith, a beloved New Orleans session man who backed Little Richard, Lloyd Worth and different early rock stars and along with his personal group made the occasion favorites “Don’t You Simply Know It” and “Rockin’ Pneumonia and Boogie Woogie Flu,” has died. He was 89.
His daughter, Acquelyn Donsereaux, informed The Related Press that he died in his sleep Feb. 13 at his house in Baton Rouge. She didn’t cite a selected trigger.
A New Orleans native who carried out nationwide however at all times returned to Louisiana, Smith was one of many final survivors of a unprecedented scene of musicians and songwriters who helped make New Orleans a elementary affect on rock ‘n’ roll. He was simply 15 when he started enjoying professionally and in his 20s helped out on quite a few ’50s hits, together with Worth’s “The place You At?”, Earl King’s “These Lonely Lonely Nights” and Smiley Lewis’ “I Hear You Knocking.” Little Richard, Fat Domino and David Bartholomew had been among the many many different artists he labored with.
In 1957, he fashioned Huey “Piano” Smith and the Clowns and reached the highest 10 with “Rockin’ Pneumonia,” a mid-tempo stomp which featured the vocals of John Marchin and Smith’s buoyant keyboard enjoying, and the equally rowdy and good-natured “Don’t You Simply Know It.” The Clowns additionally had been recognized for “We Like Birdland”, “Properly I’ll Be John Brown” and “Excessive Blood Stress.”
One Smith manufacturing grew to become a serious hit and rock customary, for an additional performer. Smith and his group wrote, organized and recorded “Sea Cruise,” however Ace Information thought the tune would have extra success with a white singer — as Smith realized bluntly from native report distributor Joe Caronna — and changed the Clowns’ vocals with these of Frankie Ford, whose model grew to become one million vendor.
“I used to be crying as he (Caronna) mentioned that,” Smith informed biographer John Wirt, whose Huey ‘Piano’ Smith and the Rocking Pneumonia Blues got here out in 2014. “I had been consuming slightly bit. It damage me to my coronary heart when he informed me he was taking that.”
Artists protecting “Sea Cruise” and different Smith songs included John Fogerty, the Seashore Boys, Aerosmith and Jerry Garcia. In 2005, Ford would deny “stealing” the tune, alleging that he had written the phrases. “Huey sorta went by means of a interval and ‘forgot’ quite a lot of issues,” Ford informed Offbeat Journal.
Smith’s reputation pale after the Beatles arrived and by 1980 he had stop the enterprise, settled in Baton Rouge along with his spouse, Margrette, and turn out to be a Jehovah’s Witness. Like many rock musicians from the ’50s, he fought to be paid and credited for “Sea Cruise” and different hits and spent a long time in authorized battles and monetary bother. Native musicians, in the meantime, continued to quote him as an inspiration.
“To me he was the person who received extra out of simplicity than anyone in New Orleans,” drummer Earl Palmer informed Wirt.
In 2000, Smith obtained a Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Basis and he was honored a yr later by the Louisiana Blues Corridor of Fame. Admirers would cite him as some of the very important performers to not be inducted into the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame.
He’s survived by his spouse, 10 kids, 18 grandchildren and 47 nice grandchildren, his daughter informed the AP.
Smith grew up within the Uptown part New Orleans, his father a roofer, his mom a laundry employee. As a boy, Smith took up piano, studying by watching his uncle play, and he quickly mastered the eight-bar development that anchored numerous blues songs. He performed obsessively, generally to the annoyance of his neighbors, and in highschool he helped begin the band the Pleasure Jumpers.
He was nonetheless in his teenagers when he met one other younger New Orleans musician, Eddie Lee Jones, who as “Guitar Slim” influenced numerous musicians and gave Smith his “Piano” nickname. Lewis’ personal work initially drew upon the blues-boogie woogie of Professor Longhair. However he would finally soak up a variety of types, whether or not the jazz of Jelly Roll Martin or the rock-rhythm and blues of Fat Domino.
“I took as much as tryin’ quite a lot of music apart from only one particular person fashion,” he informed Wirt. “I like my very own fashion, however my very own fashion is totally totally different than rhythm-and-blues, or calypso or any of that. It’s simply deep down funk.”
