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Fess Up: Professor Longhair

Still in NOLA here is a newly curated anthology of the life and works of Professor Longhair (this year marks the centenary of his birth), originally documented by the late Stevenson J. Palfi. That “Piano Players Rarely Ever Play Together” is quite true, but we are lucky to have had the Fats-Ray-Jerry summit from thirty years…

James Booker

James Booker: Old Soul with New Wrinkles

Since we are coming up to the time of year when Booker died I thought I’d mark it now. IMHO Booker is one of those geniuses on par with “Gatemouth” Brown in the sense that they were so versatile encompassing so many different styles and so authentically. Both were “characters” but of course were very different in…

cosimo matassa

Cosimo Matassa (1926 – 2014)

From offBeat and Keith Spera. Mr. Matassa helped facilitate the role of New Orleans in the birth of rock ‘n’ roll. He opened his first studio, J&M Recording, in 1945 in the back of his family’s record and appliance store at the corner of North Rampart and Dumaine streets in the French Quarter. Its pedigree is…