This week’s show celebrates the birth anniversary of three highly regarded New Orleans area musicians: Paul “Lil Buck” Sinegal, Big Chief Bo Dollis and Allen Toussaint. You’ll also hear and hear about a New Orleans twist of a song from the great mockumentary “This is Spinal Tap.”
Paul Sinegal, who died the summer of 2019, would have been 77 this week. His career spans blues, zydeco and R&B. A good part of his career was spent as a guitarist with Clifton Chenier’s band, including his stage debut as a young teen. He also worked with Rockin’ Dopsie and Buckwheat Zydeco. He was a regular performer at Ponderosa Stomp. In 1999, Sinegal released The Buck Stops Here – a record produced on Allen Toussaint’s NYNO Label and featured several songs written by Toussaint. The show starts with Sinegal’s “Don’t You Lie to Me” and you’ll hear him later with “Monkey in a Sack.”
Big Chief Bo Dollis was a pioneer along with his mentor Big Chief Tootie Montana in the cultural arena known as Mardi Gras Indians. Dollis and Montana elevated the sewing and construction of the “suits” (never call them costumes) to such a high level that much of the rough action and violence that was once associated with Mardi Gras Indians stopped. Who would want to fight and mess up such a great suit — which can also weigh around 100 pounds. Dollis, who also would have been 77 this year, is featured with two Wild Magnolias numbers “New Suit” and “Coconut Milk”
In the six years of this show, you’ve heard a lot about Allen Toussaint because its impossible to do a New Orleans show without frequent appearances by him, his songs and his extensive music production work. In this week’s show, you’ll here him sing “Oh My” with Dave Bartholomew on trumpet, the Paul Simon classic “American Tune” and a early online dating novelty song called “Computer Lady.” But you’ll also hear Toussaint classics “Ride Your Pony” and “Night People” by The Meters and Stanton Moore respectively.
At just after the first hour mark, Matt Perrine of the New Orleans Nightcrawlers (and countless other music projects) introduces “Big Bottom” — a song played by the parody heavy metal band Spinal Tap in the movie by Rob Reiner. Here’s the original version. It’s fun to compare this powerful Nightcrawler version, arranged by Perrine after years of noodling on how to convert the plodding rock beat into a New Orleans style song, to the original. The Nightcrawlers are up for a Grammy for their new release Atmosphere that includes the song “Big Bottom.”
Lots of other fun stuff in between all this, including at least three appearances by bass player George Porter Jr. and some great but not well known songs by Eric Lindell, Marcia Ball, the Radiators, Yvette Landry, Buckwheat Zydeco and the New Orleans Suspects — just to name drop a few.
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Sweeney's Gumbo YaYa 