Get the party going

Get the party going

The rhythm & blues of Lee Dorsey provides a great introduction to the music of New Orleans

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT
Get the party going

In 1987, I bought a Charley label reissue called Soul Mine, a double vinyl LP that featured some of the hits of the New Orleans-born R'n'B and soul singer Lee Dorsey. I was interested in the album because I'd read in John Broven's wonderful book, Walking to New Orleans: The Story of New Orleans Rhythm & Blues (Flyright, UK/Blues Unlimited, USA, 1974), that Dorsey recorded many of his best tracks not only with my favourite New Orleans funk band, The Meters, but also with producer and piano virtuoso Alan Toussaint.

Toussaint and Marshall Sehorn wrote many of the songs that featured on the compilation. Hits like Dorsey's earliest one Ya Ya, Working in a Coal Mine, Sneakin' Sally Through the Alley (I think it was the late Robert Palmer who had the biggest hit with his cover of this song but it isn't a patch on the original), Oo-Na-Nay, Get Out of My Life, Woman and Ride Your Pony all featured. I hadn't heard any of these tracks for years until recently when a friend handed me a double CD reissue of the above, on one CD, plus another CD with lesser known hits like Ride the Stallion, Go Go Girl and Night People. The second CD even includes a couple of country songs that Dorsey had planned to release on an album of country songs.

Dorsey died in 1986 just a few months before the original Charley release and would not live to see and hear hip hop musicians like the Wu Tang Clan sample his music. It turns out that the most sampled song is Get Out of My Life, Woman. John Lennon covered his songs and Petula Clarke had a monster international hit with Ya Ya Twist, her cover of Ya Ya.

Born in 1924 in New Orleans, Dorsey moved to Portland, Oregon when he was 10. He stayed in Oregon and joined the navy. For a time in the early 1950s, he worked as a prizefighter, under the name, Kid Chocolate. But the key moment, it seems to me, in Dorsey's singing career was when he met Marshall Sehorn and Alan Toussaint in the late 1950s/early 1960s and signed to the Fury label. Marshall Sehorn tells an amusing anecdote in John Broven's book of how, in an early meeting with Dorsey, he had been on the front porch of Dorsey's house, just outside New Orleans and some local kids were dancing and singing a song that included the chorus, "la la". Neither had any material to record, so they took the children's ditty, changed it around a little and created a solid gold million seller.

I've been told that if you want to be able to survive as a musician in New Orleans, you'd better give the crowd a good time, a "Saturday night" good time. Dorsey seems to fit that bill _ he was said to be an upbeat effervescent character _ as many of his songs have got many a party and disco going. He was and remains particularly popular with musos in the UK; the Clash, for instance, booked him as their support act on their 1980 US tour.

Toussaint and Sehorn's Sansu Records put New Orleans back on the musical map in the mid-1960s with a succession of hits by musicians like Lee Dorsey. The combination of Toussaint's songwriting, arranging and production, piano work, along with the rock solid backing of one of the best funk bands ever _ The Meters _ and topped by the warm but energetic vocals of Dorsey produced some memorable music over the next few years. The Meters also released several key singles and albums around the same time.

The songs I've been playing from this album over the festive period have been mainly the uptempo dancers like all the hits plus some gems I'd forgotten like Great Googa Mooga and Work, Work, Work. Some of my friends expressed surprise that Dorsey's version of Art Neville's Ride Your Pony is the original; everyone knows one of his songs, they just don't know who the singer was! Dorsey shines on all the songs but he's able to because of the snap of Zigaboo Modeliste's snare drum and the driving thump of George Porter's bass lines, and, of course, Toussaint's rich piano New Orleans-style playing.

With Mardi Gras and the carnival season to come next month, I can't think of a better time to dip into gumbo that is the music of New Orleans. Lee Dorsey is a good place to start. If you can't get the compilation, try out YouTube for clips of Dorsey.

Ritmo Tropical 2, the second night in a series on tropical dance music which I host as DJ Por Yai at Opposite, set for the end of the month. More details in my next column.


This column can be emailed at clewley.john@gmail.com/

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