Chuck Carbo RIP

Another New Orleans legend has died, this time Chuck Carbo, who was joint lead singer (with brother Chick) with The Spiders and went on to have a successful solo career, including two Rounder albums in the 1990s. Chuck was 81 and lived in Houma, Louisiana, and during a lengthy career he played with all the New Orleans greats, from Dr John to Allen Toussaint to Huey Smith.New Orleans was not noted for R and B vocal groups and The Spiders was the most successful to come out of the Crescent City during the 1950s. Originally formed as a gospel group, the Zion City Harmonisers, The Spiders enjoyed success on Imperial with a series of Dave Barthololew produced records between 1954 and 1956 including the two-sided "I Didn't Want to Do It"/"You're the One," "I'm Slippin' In" in 1954, and "Witchcraft" the next year. Here's a clip from YouTube of Chuck performing "Witchcraft" http://youtube.com/watch?v=hzXVVqxRDVA&feature=related

Chuck recorded some solo 45s for Imperial, Rex, and Ace but enjoyed his biggest success in 1989 with "Meet Me With Your Black Drawers On". This happened to be the first year that I went to New Orleans and. although not one of New Orleans' greatest moments, the song was everywhere, eventually becoming one of those New Orleans singles that gets air play every year. He followed up this success with the album "Drawers Trouble" which he recorded with Dr John, and "Barber's Blues".

I remember seeing Chuck a couple of times at Jazzfest and have a photo of him with James "Sugarboy" Crawford, who will be performing at Porretta next weekend. He was one of the true greats of the city - The Voice of New Orleans as he was described in later years - with a beautiful voice and his loss marks the end of yet another chapter in New Orleans' music history. Here's an interesting obituary of Chuck from the New Orleans Times-Picayune http://blog.nola.com/keithspera/2008/07/spiders_singer_chuck_carbo_192.html