Professor Longhair Big Chief

The songs on this CD were recorded on February 3rd and 4th, 1978 at the New Orleans club named in his honor after one of his most beloved songs, "Tipitina." This album would serve as an excellent introduction to Professor Longhair for anyone yet unfamiliar with his unique sound.
Rob Bowman describes the tracks this way: "The evenings were typical 1970s Longhair, mixing his classics with an inspired set of covers. He introduces an enigmatically slowed down version of Hank Snow's 'I'm Movin' On' by saying 'Here's one Hank Williams did.' Later on he combines his own 'She Walks Right In' with Big Joe Turner's 'Shake, Rattle and Roll' and Fellow New Orleanian Chris Kenner's 'Sick and Tired'…

The rhumba-rocking rhythms of Roy "Professor Longhair" Byrd live on throughout Rhino's 40-track retrospective of the New Orleans icon's amazing legacy. Most of the seminal stuff arrives early on: "Bald Head," the rollicking ode cut for Mercury in 1950, is followed by a raft of classics from his 1949 and 1953 Atlantic dates ("Tipitina," "Ball the Wall," "Who's Been Fooling You"), the storming 1957 "No Buts, No Maybes," and "Baby Let Me Hold Your Hand" for Ebb, and his beloved "Go to the Mardi Gras" as waxed for Ron in 1959. The second disc is a hodgepodge of material from the Professor's '70s comeback, all of it wonderful in its own way but not as essential as the early work.

An exciting 2CD collection / 36 Tracks of studio and live recordings. Almost every musical history contains at least one crucial forebear whose inventions were too bold to translate to a broad audience, but who was nonetheless a profound influence on subsequent generations, and therefore changed the culture at an odd remove'a musician's musician". In the nineteen-forties and fifties, that was Fess's stature. Roy Byrd aka Professor Longhair, his legacy looms larger than any other musical figure with the possible exception of Louis Armstrong. On THE BACH OF ROCK, Longhair bounces buoyantly through old favorites while adding some new songs into the mix. Fess's infectious vocals, jaunty ivory-tickling, and funky groove provide the ultimate soundtrack to the Crescent City and show exactly why the city has the reputation that it does.

Probably the best of all the many albums Longhair waxed during his comeback. A tremendously tight combo featuring three horns and Dr. John on guitar delightfully back the Professor every step of the way as he recasts Solomon Burke's "Cry to Me" and Fats Domino's "Whole Lotta Loving" in his own indelible image and roars, yodels, and whistles out wonderful remakes of his own oldies "Big Chief" and "Bald Head."

Professor Longhair - The Last Mardi Gras (1978) {2CD Set Atlantic–Real Gone Music RGM-0222 rel 2014}
EAC rip (secure mode) | FLAC (tracks)+CUE+LOG -> 519 Mb | MP3 @320 -> 207 Mb
Full Artwork @ 300 dpi (jpg) -> 22 Mb | 5% repair rar
© 1978, 2014 Atlantic / Real Gone Music | RGM-0222
Blues / R&B / Jazz / Rock & Roll / Piano

As the originator of the rhum-boogie, that amalgam of rhumba and boogie-woogie peculiar to New Orleans, Henry Roeland Roy Byrd a.k.a. Professor Longhair was a seminal influence on several generations of Crescent City stars, everybody from Fats Domino to Huey Smith to Allen Toussaint to Dr. John. But, as album producer (and controversial biographer of Elvis, John Lennon and Lenny Bruce) Albert Goldman writes in his liner notes to The Last Mardi Gras, the Professor was was wasting away in comparative obscurity while the record companies either refused to cut him or sat upon the records he had already made. So Goldman, who at the time was music critic for Esquire, campaigned in the magazine s pages for proper recognition of the New Orleans legend, and, lo and behold, Atlantic Records stepped forward with a 16-track mobile recording unit to get the job done.

From the 19th century African music gatherings in Congo Square to the birth of jazz and its offshoots, New Orleans is one of America's most important music cities, and with the Rough Guide to the Music of New Orleans collection, listeners get a well-rounded taste of the Crescent City's musical gumbo. The collection touches on traditional jazz torchbearers (Dr. Michael White), classic R&B (Jessie Hill, Earl King), down-home funk (the Meters), Mardi Gras-ready brass players (Kermit Ruffins, Hot 8 Brass Band), global-influenced groovers (Los Hombres Calientes), and artists on the rise (Papa Grows Funk). While it's impossible to capture the full spectrum of New Orleans music on a single disc – women artists are underrepresented, and the NOLA hip-hop scene that's emerged since the 1990s is skipped entirely – this Rough Guide is a spirited introduction, and as a bonus is accompanied by a second disc featuring emerging heavy funk purveyors Dumpstaphunk.

This solid 2-disc compilation celebrates two decades of this label's existence. There are many worthwhile tracks but few surprises.