Lee Dorsey - Night People: The Best Of Lee Dorsey
No major American city knows how to throw a party quite the way New Orleans does.
The good times roll year round and in great abundance in the Crescent City, and its wide-ranging musical soundscape reflects that glorious commitment. It’s full of irresistible second-line beats and rollicking horn solos that offer a non-stop invitation to dance, strut, and parade down the nearest funky thoroughfare with utter abandon. Of all the Big Easy’s legion of legendary singers, none save the iconic Louis Armstrong and Fats Domino reflect that ebullient spirit of endless joy like Lee Dorsey.
“He was just such a high-spirited guy, and such a unique voice that always sounded like it had a smile in it,” said his longtime producer, the late Allen Toussaint. “It was just a pleasure to hear his voice.” No one knew how to bring that smile out of Dorsey and transfer it to the grooves of a record the way Toussaint did. The prolific pianist also wrote most of Dorsey’s hits and played his singular 88s on nearly all of them. “We spent a lot of time together, and he had such a unique voice that you could go to subjects and humor that you never would dare try with another type of vocalist or a debonair personality,” said Toussaint. “We spent lots of time together, and he loved singing so very much. So that was always quite gratifying.”
Dorsey was a man of the people who was there to have a good time and wanted you to join him. He was every bit as talented with a hammer and other restorative automotive tools as he was behind a mic; his skills as a body and fender man were in great demand in his hometown. Dorsey never quit pursuing that vocation, even when he was scoring national hits. He’d tour the globe for awhile, then come back home and get down to the business of repairing the damaged undersides of cars. Not exactly a glamorous existence, and one that guaranteed humility.
Irving (or Irvin, depending on your source) Lee Dorsey was born on December 4, 1926, a native of New Orleans’ musically fertile Ninth Ward, the same as his slightly younger childhood pal Fats. Lee’s family relocated to far-off Portland, Oregon at age 10 (it’s said that he came to appreciate country music while living in the Pacific Northwest). When World War II broke out, Dorsey was drafted and served the Navy in the South Pacific, where he was wounded in action.
Fortunately, Lee’s leg injury didn’t stop him from pursuing a career as a prizefighter in the featherweight and lightweight divisions once he returned to civilian life in Portland. Billed as Kid Chocolate, he retired undefeated from the ring (according to the wiry pugilist himself) in 1955 and promptly drove back to his former hometown, where he learned the body and fender trade and went to work for local deejay Ernie “The Whip” Brigier’s car repair shop.
To help pass the time while toiling on banged-up cars, Dorsey enjoyed singing little ditties, never dreaming anyone was listening. One day Renald Richard, a talent scout, trumpeter, and former member of Ray Charles’ combo, caught an earful of Lee’s impromptu vocal performance while Dorsey was hard at work under Richard’s auto chassis and immediately sensed he’d stumbled across a diamond in the rough. Much to Dorsey’s surprise, Richard handed him $50 and told him to report that same evening to Cosimo Matassa’s recording studio on Governor Nicholls Street—the site of classic sessions by Lee’s old pal Fats as well as Lloyd Price, Little Richard, Smiley Lewis, Shirley & Lee, and countless more.
Naturally, when he arrived at Cosimo’s French Quarter facilities after work that night, Dorsey had no material to record. But it didn’t take Lee and Renald long to hammer out what ended up simply titled “Rock” as well as a flip side, “Lonely Evening.” Matassa must have been impressed with the results—he picked up the masters for issue in the summer of 1959 on his own Rex label. After Lee hit it big in 1961, Johnny Vincent’s Ace Records resurrected the single.
Nothing much happened with Dorsey’s debut offering—he didn’t even do a single gig off it—but that didn’t stop Richard from trying again with his protégé. Lee and Renald collaborated on penning “Lottie-Mo,” the rocking half of Dorsey’s encore single, this time for Joe Banashak and Irving Smith’s Valiant label. For the other side, Lee turned to session pianist Toussaint, who introduced him to his elegant, easy-swinging composition “Lover Of Love.” Released in early 1961, the single stirred up enough regional dust to convince the major ABC-Paramount imprint to reissue it nationally a couple of months later.
Toussaint was refashioning the entire concept of Crescent City R&B with his modern, Ray Charles-tinged feel and instantly recognizable in-the-cracks ivories technique. Born January 14, 1938 in New Orleans, Toussaint was raised in the Gert Town neighborhood and picked up his first piano pointers from his older sister. “When they first sat it in the house and I walked over to this big piece of furniture and touched it and got a pleasant sound, that was it for me. I just fell in love right away,” said Toussaint. “I understood the structure of the piano very soon, and I began picking out little melodies that I heard on the radio.
“I started writing simple melodies at 12,” he said. “It seemed like a natural progression, after you mimic a lot of recordings.” Ray Charles, Albert Ammons, Lloyd Glenn, and most of all local hero Professor Longhair were Toussaint’s primary piano influences. “As a player, Professor Longhair, and also as a bold conceptualist,” said Toussaint. “I really loved his off-the-beaten-pathness.” At 13, Toussaint was skilled enough to put together a band. “(Guitarist) Little Snooks Eaglin and myself and some neighborhood guys formed a band called the Flamingoes,” he said. “That=s when I first began gigging, playing record hops.”
Imperial Records A&R man and trumpet-blowing bandleader Dave Bartholomew hired young Allen to lay down a piano track for a quickie Domino session on the West Coast in 1957 (the tape was shipped out to L.A. so Fats could overdub his vocal). “When Dave brought me into play on the Fats recordings, that was the most important thing that I had ever done,” he said. Toussaint also played on local sax blaster Lee Allen’s hit instrumental “Walkin’ With Mr. Lee” for Ember Records, and served as session pianist for RCA Victor A&R man Danny Kessler at an early ‘58 Cosimo’s date that led to his debut sides as a bandleader.
“I was in the studio to play on Roland Cook=s recording (“Long Lost Love,” Toussaint’s first recorded composition) and Roy Gaines= recording (“Skippy Is A Sissy”),” he said. “As I was playing on their session, Danny Kessler was the talent scout who was recording them, and who was traveling the country looking for talent. And he kept saying, >Turn the piano up! Turn the piano up!= And when the session was over, he came to me and he asked me, would I consider compiling some songs that he could come back and record an album on me? And I said yes.”
One of the infectious original instrumentals gracing that 1958 RCA debut LP, issued as The Wild Sound of New Orleans by Tousan (the label had pressed up his debut 45, “Happy Times,” as by A. Tousan), was “Java,” very successfully revived in 1964 by portly Crescent City trumpeter Al Hirt on RCA. Kessler followed it up with another marathon session in December of ‘59 that resulted in several Al Tousan singles on the Seville imprint. But Allen’s big break came when he went to work for the fledgling Minit label.
“Singers from around New Orleans were auditioning one night at WMRY radio station, which was later WYLD,” said Toussaint. “Many singers around town, non-professional singers, knew that I would know all of the radio songs, songs that were on the air. And I was asked by a few of the artists to play behind them as they auditioned.
“When the audition session was over, Larry McKinley and Joe Banashak, who were the company founders, called me into the control room and told me that Harold Battiste was to be their permanent A&R man. But until he would come off the West Coast to join them, would I consider pinch-hitting for him? And I said, ‘Of course I would!’ So I started with Minit right away. And they were very satisfied with me, and I was satisfied with them,” he said. “That’s how I got started with Minit, which was an enjoyable place.”
McKinley, then a top deejay on WYLD, remembered the occasion a bit differently. He recalled telling Banashak, “’We need a music man. I know a guy named Allen Toussaint. He’s playing at a club called the Joy Tavern. Let me go contact him,’” he said. “Joe and I never did talk about Harold Battiste. I didn’t even know Harold Battiste. But I did know Allen Toussaint. So that’s how we pulled Allen in, and of course that was a string of hits.”
Launched in 1959, Minit quickly snapped up a lot of the Crescent City’s young talent, and Toussaint wrote them all classics: Ernie K-Doe (the chart-topping “Mother-In-Law”), Benny Spellman (“Lipstick Traces”), Aaron Neville (“Over You”), Irma Thomas (“It’s Raining”). Teaming with Allen Orange as Allen & Allen, Toussaint even tried his hand as a duet singer in 1960 with the rocking “Tiddle Winks.” His singular piano style, endlessly inventive songwriting ability, and uncredited production talent rapidly rendered Minit a winner. Its Valiant subsidiary morphed into Instant, and there he multi-tasked for Chris Kenner.
Dorsey’s Valiant single didn’t sell enough to merit an encore, but it did receive a spin when it most counted. Marshall Sehorn, a promotion man for Bobby Robinson’s Harlem-based Fire and Fury Records, happened to hear “Lottie-Mo” over the radio during a visit to the Big Easy, initially mistaking it for a Ray Charles platter before getting his facts straight. Sehorn reported on Lee’s intriguing existence when he returned to New York and met with his boss, Bobby Robinson, an African-American entrepreneur who had parlayed his thriving little record shop on 125th Street into ownership of several R&B labels.
A native of Union, South Carolina, Robinson had arrived in New York after serving in the Army during the war, opened his store in 1946, and segued into making his own platters in 1951 with the Robin logo, its handle quickly changing to Red Robin. Specializing in smooth doo-wop and houserocking blues, Red Robin rolled along into early 1956—the same year he launched Whirlin Disc with Jubilee Records owner Jerry Blaine. That partnership didn’t take, and by January of ‘57 Robinson had his own Fury imprint up and running.
1959 was Bobby’s breakthrough year. Fury scored an across-the-board chart-topper with Wilbert Harrison’s “Kansas City,” and harpist Buster Brown’s throwback blues romp “Fannie Mae” paced the R&B hit parade on Bobby’s fledgling Fire logo. 1960 brought more gold: flamboyant New Orleans singer Bobby Marchan’s “There Is Something On Your Mind Part 2” went to the top of the R&B charts, and Chicago blues slide guitar wizard Elmore James made a strong comeback with “The Sky Is Crying.”
Robinson often traveled—he unexpectedly tracked down Elmore in Chicago after a long search—and he journeyed to New Orleans after attending a Miami record convention to check Dorsey out for himself. They found the framework for Lee’s first smash while discussing business on his front porch. Neighborhood kids were chanting a playful off-color rhyme with a catchy melody that Dorsey transformed lyrically into “Ya Ya.” Toussaint was summoned the next day to give the song his magic touch. But there was a problem: because of his myriad duties at Minit and Instant, Allen couldn’t play on Dorsey’s beguiling creation. So he recruited fellow ivories ace Marcel Richardson to play the rolling piano parts he envisioned for “Ya Ya.”
“Marshall brought that to me to make a demo for him, to take it to Battiste so they could record it,” remembered Toussaint. “So I made the demo, and I played it like that. And Marcel played it like that as well. So of course it sounds like me, because it=s my idea. But that’s Marcel Richardson playing.” Battiste was on tenor sax and doubled as arranger, with guitarist Justin Adams, bassist Chuck Badie and drummer John Boudreaux supplying a very supple groove underneath. “I liked it very much,” said Toussaint.
Allen’s own “Give Me You,” riding another propulsive Crescent City groove, was nestled on the B-side of Lee’s Fury debut, graced with a high-flying Battiste sax solo. Its authorship was credited to Allen’s mother, Naomi Neville, in an attempt to distance himself from the publishing deal he’d signed with Kessler when he was underage. “It was time to change publishing companies, and that meant there was going to be a lot of legal litigation going on,” Toussaint said. “While they were busy dealing with that, I used a pseudonym so it could be independent and wouldn’t get mixed up in whatever their litigations were.”
Released on Fury during the summer of ’61, Lee’s “Ya Ya” was a certified smash, sailing to the top of the R&B charts that autumn and climbing to a lofty #7 on Billboard’s pop listings. Now Dorsey was a bankable commodity, and he hit the chitlin’ circuit to make some money from his tasty creation. Of course, coming up with a suitable followup that would ensure Lee avoiding the tag of one-hit wonder was paramount. Thanks to New Orleans blues guitarist Earl King, the happy-go-lucky singer would avoid that ignominious fate.
Another of the Crescent City’s most inventive musical bards, King was born Earl Silas Johnson IV on February 7, 1934 and was heavily influenced early on by the charismatic Eddie “Guitar Slim” Jones. “That was one of my idols when I was coming up,” said the late King. “He was incredible.” Earl’s ‘53 debut single for Savoy, waxed in cahoots with pianist Huey Smith, hit the streets under the surname of Johnson, but he found himself with a new handle upon cutting the Slim-style “A Mother’s Love” the next year for Art Rupe’s Specialty Records. “That happened with a mishap at the pressing plant,” King explained. “It was supposed to have been King Earl. They thought they had the last name first, so they printed Earl King on the record.”
Earl moved over to Johnny Vincent’s fledgling Ace Records in 1955 and scored a smash with the impassioned two-chord blues ballad “Those Lonely, Lonely Nights.” “It took off for him real quick,” said King, who fought off West Coast cover competition from Johnny “Guitar” Watson. Earl stayed on Ace to the end of the decade, then settled in at Imperial, where he waxed the two-part “Come On” in 1960 for A&R man Dave Bartholomew and hit in 1962 with “Always A First Time.” But he didn’t save all of his originals for himself or Imperial, much to the consternation of his producer.
“I was writing for a lot of people during that period, and Dave spoke with me one day,” said King. “He said, ‘Look, man, we got enough artists here on Imperial. If you want to give some songs around, spread ‘em around right here. The boss is kind of peeved with you about giving this song up to Lee Dorsey.’ I did ‘Do-Re-Mi’ on Lee Dorsey. (Fury) put it out this week, (in) two weeks it was in the charts, man.”
Retaining the nursery rhyme motif of “Ya Ya” and supported by two-fisted piano courtesy of either Toussaint or Richardson and punchy horns, “Do-Re-Mi,” produced by Robinson (some pressings split his production credit with Sehorn), made it two hits in a row for Lee, maxing out at #22 R&B and #27 pop in early 1962. The sly B-side “People Gonna Talk” saw Dorsey collaborating as a writer with one William Wheeler (the 45 listed him as Williams).
Robinson was credited with penning both sides of Lee’s third Fury offering, which came out in March of 1962 with Bobby and Sehorn again splitting production duties in the Crescent City. Both sides were delightful upbeat entries; the sprightly “Eenie-Meenie-Minee-Mo,” irresistible though it was, was eclipsed by a hair by its relentless plattermate “Behind The 8-Ball” with its choppy horn lines, slicing guitar solo (by Roy Montrell, perhaps?) and timing quirks (trumpet flub on the vamp out notwithstanding). Maybe the two solid performances canceled each other out, because neither side charted.
For the first time, Lee reached back for an oldie as the plug side of his next Fury single. “You Are My Sunshine” was first recorded by the Pine Ridge Boys for Bluebird in August of 1939 and the Rice Brothers Gang the following month for Decca. The best-known version by far, by country singer Jimmie Davis with Charles Mitchell’s orchestra, was waxed for Decca in February of 1940 (Davis and Mitchell ended up with official authorship). Everyone from Doris Day and Nat King Cole to Jerry Lee Lewis and Ray Charles revived the tune from there. Dorsey proved the anthem could easily survive a transformation to New Orleans R&B, complete with churchy 88s and vocal group backing (Robinson and Sehorn continued to produce him). Dorsey wrote the opposite side, “Give Me Your Love,” borrowing the melody of Little Richard’s “Send Me Some Lovin’” right down to his little squeal on the breaks.
Fury compiled a Dorsey album in 1962 entitled Ya! Ya! that was half recent singles and leaned heavily on Earl King for suitable fresh material: the snappy “One And One” and a tongue-twisting “Ixie Dixie Pixie Pie” were tasty products of King’s pen. “Things pop in my head. I might be sitting up looking at something, and I’ll just click off: ‘Snap!’ Just like that,” explained King of his songwriting process. “I write it all. When I used to write, I used to write for individuals in whatever style, whether they were pop singers, whatever. I never limited myself to writing one phase of things.” Robinson apparently cooked up the effervescent “Chin Chin” and “Yum Yum” to Cosimo’s for the album sessions, while Toussaint trotted out his Neville sobriquet to scribe “Mess Around,” retitled “Messed Around (And Fell In Love)” when Chicago’s Constellation Records gave Dorsey’s reading a belated 45 issue in 1964.
Toussaint’s duties at Minit/Instant didn’t always preclude him from playing on Lee’s Fury output. He was reportedly on “Hoodlum Joe,” Dorsey’s Fury farewell, which was issued at the start of ’63, along with Boudreaux on drums, Montrell on guitar, and bassist Richard Payne. Robinson got credit for producing “Hoodlum Joe,” which Allen conceived under his mom’s handle, complete with the highly distinctive backing vocals that so many of Toussaint’s ‘60s efforts featured. “When I Meet My Baby,” another unfettered delight attributed to Neville, was typically tailored to Dorsey’s unique vocal strengths.
“He was a hip guy, but he wasn’t so debonair and cool that he couldn’t sing a humorous kind of song. So that opened me up to be able to write lighthearted kind of songs, like ‘Lover Of Love,’ said Toussaint. “If he was of a more romance person, I wouldn’t have been able to write those kinds of songs for him. But the way he was, he could handle those very well, and happily so. So he had an uplifting spirit all the time. He was up. If he met anyone for the first time, he’d meet them with a little humorous saying of some kind, maybe a very short joke. He was a good living guy. He drank Chivas Regal and smoked Pall Malls.”
When the Sphere Sound label put together an LP’s worth of Lee’s Fury tracks in 1965 under the title Ya-Ya, its compiler unearthed the previously unheard Dorsey/Sehorn composition “Great Googa Mooga,” right in Lee’s wheelhouse with bright, brassy horns and nonsensical lyrics sure to bring that smile Toussaint mentioned to anyone’s face. Robinson’s vaults also coughed up a breezy singalong treatment of the hoary “Lil Liza Jane,” previously updated by Huey Smith and His Rhythm Aces for Ace and Fats Domino on Imperial before Lee set his sights on it. Another Fury production, the unstoppable Robinson composition “You’re Breaking Me Up,” eventually turned up as a Dorsey single on Constellation.
With Fury defunct, Sehorn produced Dorsey independently, licensing the masters to other firms. Mercury’s Smash subsidiary took a summer 1963 flyer on “Hello Good Looking,” another seductive Earl King composition with a syncopated beat that fit Lee to a tee. Dorsey made a rare foray into slower material on the flip, a relaxed revival of Smiley Lewis’ gently swinging ‘56 Imperial release “Someday” with jazz-tinged backing unlike anything he’d ever encountered.
Two additional items from that date, the decidedly R&B-focused “As Quiet As It’s Kept” and “People Sure Act Funny,” were both undeservedly dispatched to the vaults for an extended hiatus. The latter was a mighty popular cover item, introduced by its co-writer, Atlanta-born blues shouter Titus Turner, on Robinson’s Enjoy label in 1962. The streetwise anthem was subsequently covered by Lucius Lawton, Shorty Long, Arthur Conley, Don Gardner, and Alvin Cash before decade’s end. Like all those others, Dorsey did it full justice with an unidentified female duet partner grabbing a taste of the vocal action (the band included Montrell, Boudreaux, Badie, trumpeter Melvin Lastie, and Battiste arranging and on tenor sax).
Constellation Records was launched in August of 1963 by Ewart Abner after he was fired as president of Chicago’s Vee-Jay Records. His partners in the venture were producer Bill “Bunky” Sheppard and ex-Chance Records boss Art Sheridan. Sehorn brought them fresh masters in mid-1964 by Wilbert Harrison as well as Dorsey, whose first release on the logo was a revival of the Tin Pan Alley artifact “Organ Swinger Swing,” festooned with prominent organ (logically) and chorines. Will Hudson wrote the number in 1936, with lyrics by Mitchell Parish and Irving Mills; it was associated with a version by Jimmie Lunceford’s orchestra as well as Ella Fitzgerald’s vocal interpretation (both for Decca). Lee teamed with Joe Broussard (co-writer of Jean Knight’s ’71 #1 R&B smash “Mr. Big Stuff”) and saxman Alvin Thomas to conjure up its sophisticated flip, “I Gotta Find A New Love.”
Four additional tracks on this collection, all unissued at the time, date from around here too (there’s no concrete documentation). “Lonelyology,” also known as “For Your Love,” was a Toussaint composition that K-Doe also tackled (Lee took it at a faster clip) and sounds early ‘60s vintage, as does the happy “Ay-La-Ay,” its authorship parceled out between Dorsey, Sehorn, and Mac “Dr. John” Rebennack (who could have been on guitar or piano). “Oo-Na-Nay” and “You Better Tell Her” may date from slightly later in Dorsey’s recording career.
Dorsey went ice cold on the charts because Toussaint had been drafted into the Army in January of 1963 (he was stationed at Fort Hood in Texas) and was unavailable to him as a source of prime material. When the piano wizard returned to civilian life in New Orleans two years later, he picked up right where he left off. “When I did get out of the military in January and I was to record Lee Dorsey for Marshall, that’s the first time I ever tried to write a hit song. I wrote ‘Ride Your Pony.’ I was trying to write a hit song because I had been in the Army, and I figured everyone was all the way around the track, and here I was just starting again,” he said. “I mentioned states in it and cities and various things, really trying to reach people. And I must say, I had fun doing it. But that’s the only time I ever tried to write a hit.”
That session also marked the beginning of a very successful business partnership between Toussaint and Sehorn. “Marshall approached me and said he would like to work with me in any capacity. And I thought, ‘Well, what about a 50/50 partnership in whatever we do?’ That’s how that got started.” That professional coupling was particularly important for Dorsey’s fortunes, since he would be closely associated with Allen’s production and compositional genius until the end of his recording career. Even though Sehorn believed that the day’s winner was another nursery rhyme takeoff, the cute novelty “Shortnin’ Bread,” it was “Ride Your Pony,” licensed to Larry Uttal’s New York-based Amy Records, that rejuvenated Lee’s career, sailing to Top Ten R&B status and denting the pop Top 30 during the summer of 1965. Amy would also be the home of Dorsey’s subsequent blockbusters.
Thanks to Toussaint’s renewed stewardship, Dorsey was back with a vengeance. He encored with the bluesy “Get Out Of My Life, Woman,” an early ‘66 smash. Then Allen handed Lee the biggest hit of his life, the spike-driven “Working In A Coal Mine.” “I don=t know where that one came from,” admitted Toussaint. “I know Lee Dorsey, he was walking--he was coming into the office. It was on St. Philip Street at that time in New Orleans. I knew he was on the way, and I started getting a song together that he could sing something as soon as he came in, because he loved to sing. And I would always have a little something for him to sing. When he coming that day, I started putting that together, ‘Working In The Coal Mine,’ just the chorus part of it. And he came in and fell right in it. But far as inspiration, I have no idea why I would write something like ‘Working In The Coal Mine.’
“I remember it came to me--that ‘working in the coal mine, going down, down,’ that just came to me all at once. And it’s a very shallow song, actually. It doesn’t get too deeply involved. It’s just a little fun thing that happened one day,” said Toussaint. “I had it like about 10 times faster than that, for some reason, when it was first coming. But I remembered from a long time ago, no--slow things down where they can be heard.”
“Working In The Coal Mine” not only went Top Five R&B in the late summer of ’66, it also broke into the pop Top Ten—the first time Dorsey had traversed such lofty climes since “Ya Ya” half a decade earlier (it’s on this collection in a lighthearted live version, as are “Ride Your Pony” and “Lottie-Mo”). Lee’s irrepressible geniality was showcased on an episode of Dick Clark’s daily after-school ABC-TV program Where the Action Is, and he shared a sweaty bill with Sam & Dave on European television—a long way indeed from the auto repair shop. Speaking of which, Toussaint wittily tailored one of Dorsey’s 1967 Amy offerings to his penchant for jalopies—though “My Old Car” actually started out as something else altogether.
“That was for a Coca-Cola commercial,” explained Toussaint. “That’s what it was for: ‘My old car broke down; things go better with Coke.’ It was for the Coke first.” That clever original Coca-Cola spot is included here, along with another very catchy Coke ad Dorsey made for the soda manufacturer. Toussaint spent just as much time and care on them as he did on any other of his productions, complete with his usual distinctive backing vocals. “When it came to Lee Dorsey, it was Willie Harper and me,” noted Toussaint. “Just the two of us.” Coke waged an all-out radio campaign for the black teenage demographic during the latter half of the ‘60s, producing similar spots by the Drifters, the Supremes, Carla Thomas, Jerry Butler, Marvin Gaye, Joe Tex, Little Milton, and Fontella Bass as well as many popular rockers for Top 40 formats.
Thanks to the prolific pen of Toussaint, Dorsey scored late in 1966 with the soft-shoe gem “Holy Cow,” then made some chart noise in ‘67 with “Go-Go Girl.” The studio cast behind him shifted as the decade progressed; the session aces on his mid-‘60s hits included guitarists Deacon John Moore and Vincent Toussaint (Allen’s brother), bassist Walter Payton, Jr., and drummer June Gardner and Clarence “Juny Boy” Brown, but the Meters eventually took over as Allen’s funk-soaked house band.
Keyboardist Art Neville (whose solo career went back to 1956 and encompassed splendid singles for Specialty and Instant, notably 1962’s wistful “All These Things”), guitarist Leo Nocentelli, bassist George Porter, Jr., and drummer Joseph “Zigaboo” Modeliste scored a string of sizzling instrumental hits with Sehorn primarily at the helm on the Josie label—five in 1969 alone, led by “Sophisticated Cissy” and “Cissy Strut.” Several more followed in 1970-71.
“Art kind of went around and hand-picked that band, from different bands around the city,” says Porter. “I think after he had come off the road with (his brother) Aaron with ‘Tell It Like It Is,’ he wanted his own band. I was playing a group called Irving Bannister and the All Stars, playing at a club called the Cindy Club. Leo was playing at the club where we eventually started playing at. It was called the Nitecap. Leo was playing there with a band called the Sam Henry Trio, which he eventually turned into Sam & the Soul Machine. It was a trio with guitar, a Hammond B-3, and a drummer.
“Zig actually wasn’t the original drummer. The original drummer was a guy named Glenn. I could never remember his last name, because he played with us for about three months and got ill, went to the hospital to have minor surgery, and was gone for about two weeks or something like that. When he came back, Zig had been playing the gig with us. We was playing four nights a week over at the Nitecap. When he came back, he heard Zig playing with the band, and he just never asked for his gig!”
“I did actually find the Meters through Art Neville,” said Toussaint. “I was walking down in the Quarter one night, and I heard this really funky rhythm section going. And it was quite unique, and there were sparks flying everywhere. And I went and peeked in the club, and I said, ‘Of course! It’s Art Neville again!’ Because Art Neville is magic. Whatever he puts together, it’s magic. And I went in.
“Of course, I had been knowing Art, and I told him that we had a company, and would he consider coming down and talking with Marshall about joining it? He said yes. It was Art Neville and the Neville Sounds at that time. And he came to the office with the group and talked with Marshall, and they decided it would be a co-op group, as opposed to Art Neville and the Neville Sounds. And he being the gentleman that he is, that was fine with him. And that’s how the Meters got started.”
In addition to their steady stream of instrumental hits,, the Meters were frequently pressed into service as groovemasters behind Toussaint’s stable of artists. “We did lots of sessions with Allen Toussaint. We did sessions on people, we didn’t even know who they were. When we’d go in the studio with Allen for a couple of days, we would be cutting tracks for eight, ten hours every day. There wouldn’t be an artist there. We’d just be cuttin’ tracks. A lot of those songs went to Lee Dorsey,” says Porter. “There was miles and miles of tape on Lee Dorsey. I think there’s still stuff on the shelf that hasn't come out yet that we did with Lee.”
Some of those shelved early ‘70s sides on Dorsey eventually saw light of day, and the Meters are likely on them. Lee took a delightful shot at “My Babe,” Willie Dixon’s adaptation of the gospel standard “This Train” that Chicago blues harp master Little Walter rode to the top of the R&B hit parade in 1955. Ray Charles’ gloom-laden ’56 hit “Lonely Avenue,” a Doc Pomus composition, received an uncharacteristic upbeat treatment, while Chuck Willis’ posthumous 1958 hit “What Am I Living For” was treated with proper reverence.
The hits ended for Lee on Amy after 1969’s “Everything I Do Gohn Be Funky (From Now On).” Sehorn negotiated a new licensing deal for Dorsey with Polydor. His seminal 1970 album Yes We Can was written (with one exception), arranged, and co-produced by Toussaint and featured the Meters’ backing, It revitalized Lee’s career yet again.
The title track was another Toussaint classic. “I wrote that for Lee Dorsey especially, one day while he was on the way over, just like the writing of ‘Coal Mine.’ He was on the way over, and I was writing ‘Yes We Can’ for him while he was coming in the door. And it worked out just fine,” said Toussaint. “I’ve never been a rebel, or wanted to preach to the society of anything. Even when I listen to it, it says things that I don’t generally walk around daily thinking about. But it came very naturally, and Lee Dorsey’s voice was in my mind when I was writing that.”
Although it appeared in two parts on the LP, Polydor only pressed up Part 1 of “Yes We Can” as a Dorsey single. It only made a #46 R&B chart bow, but the Pointer Sisters’ 1973 remake on Blue Thumb almost crashed the Top Ten pop and R&B listings. “I love that version!” exclaimed Toussaint.
The sleek and sinuous “Sneakin’ Sally Through The Alley” was the album’s second single. “It was just a kind of nightlife and way-of-life kind of story, which a lot of us know about,” said Toussaint. “It was fun to do. I remember when we were in the studio doing it, Lee Dorsey understood that story very well, and it was fun to him as well.” British rocker Robert Palmer later turned in a well-regarded cover.
Yes We Can reeks of lowdown Crescent City funk from start to finish. “O Me-O, My-O” (the B-side of “Yes We Can”), an infectious “Tears, Tears And More Tears” and “Occapella” (those two somehow ended up coupled as a ‘71 single on Spring Records, though “Tears” had just pulled B-side duty for “Sneakin’ Sally”), an atmospheric “Riverboat,” the hard-charging “When The Bill’s Paid,” a throbbing “Gator Tail,” and the socially aware “Who’s Gonna Help Brother Get Further” all proudly upheld the city’s inherent funk tradition. The only non-Toussaint-penned selection on the set was a personalized treatment of Joe South’s “Games People Play,” which the Atlanta rocker had hit big with the year before.
Although there weren’t any more Dorsey albums on Polydor, the firm did lease a handful of additional singles from Sehorn and their composer Toussaint. The stately “Freedom For The Stallion” was a decided departure for Lee, a message song that came out in early ’72 and attracted covers by Three Dog Night and the Hues Corporation (it was the latter’s first pop chart item in the summer of ’73). Dorsey’s version came coupled with the carefree “If She Won’t (Find Someone Who Will),” much closer to Lee’s established approach. Later in the year, Dorsey released the blues-soaked “When Can I Come Home.” Allen’s graceful 88s decorated “On Your Way Down,” Lee’s Polydor farewell in mid-1973. Toussaint had included the theme on his own Reprise album Life, Love and Faith the year before (Little Feat covered it as well).
Toussaint obviously believed in his composition “A Place Where We Can Be Free,” with good reason. Allen gave the anthem to Ernie K-Doe as a centerpiece of the singer’s eponymous 1970 LP for Janus, and he and Sehorn produced a 1972 version by J.R. Branch for the Brown Sugar label. With all that competition, Polydor shelved Dorsey’s rendition, which was a shame—Lee knocked it out of the ballpark. The same archival fate awaited Lee’s jaunty rendition of Tim Hardin’s folk standard “If I Were A Carpenter,” already a hit for Bobby Darin, the Four Tops, and the duo of Johnny Cash & June Carter by the time he got around to it.
Disco had fully reared its head by 1978, when Dorsey released his final album under Toussaint’s creative aegis, Night People. The keyboard whiz made it easy for Lee, handling all the writing, arranging and producing, then leasing the finished product to ABC Records. The Meters had split from Toussaint’s empire, and the funk had gotten a whole lot slicker on the somewhat spacy title track, which may have served as a change-of-pace cool down piece at hipper discos. It barely nicked the bottom end of the R&B hit parade that February.
“Soul Mine,” one of the LP’s highlights, drolly referenced Dorsey’s similarly titled blockbuster hit of a dozen years prior right down to its signature Toussaint piano lick before going its own funky way, and “Keep On Doing It To Me” and “Babe” kept the dance floor rhythms pumping heartily. “Say It Again,” “Can I Be The One,” and “Thank You” were rare commodities in Lee’s sizable canon—genuinely tender love songs. Cascading guitar and skipping strings surrounded the diminutive singer on the yearning ballad “Draining.” Toussaint managed to celebrate his homeland on “God Must Have Blessed America” without getting too jingoistic, dressing up his salute to the states with a choir that at times nearly overwhelmed Lee.
Even if he wasn’t recording regularly anymore, Lee remained a local hero, whether toiling at his own auto repair shop or starring at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. He somehow performed at the 1980 edition despite being confined to a wheelchair due to two broken legs he suffered when a speeding auto hit his motorcycle. Happily, he was back up and around that autumn, opening for none other than the Clash on their debut North American tour.
Emphysema claimed Lee Dorsey on December 1, 1986, three-and-a-half weeks shy of his 60th birthday, in his beloved hometown of New Orleans. The warm, inviting glow of these classic recordings remind us anew of what a charismatic performer he was.
“He had an uplifting spirit all the time. He was up. If he met anyone for the first time, he=d meet them with a little humorous saying of some kind, maybe a very short joke,” said Toussaint, who enjoyed an extended late-career bout with performing stardom prior to his November 10, 2015 passing of a heart attack while on tour in Madrid, Spain. “That guy had such a high spirit. He was a high-spirited, happy guy.”
--Bill Dahl
SOURCES
45cat website: http://www.45cat.com/
I Hear You Knockin’—The Sound of New Orleans Rhythm and Blues, by Jeff Hannusch (Ville Platte, LA: Swallow Pubs. Inc., 1985)
Joel Whitburn’s Top R&B Hits 1942-1988, by Joel Whitburn (Menomonee Falls, WI: Record Research, Inc., 1988)
Rhythm & Blues in New Orleans, by John Broven (Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Co., 1978)
Wikipedia website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
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