Huey 'Piano' Smith' RIP

The bad news just keeps on coming. The man behind some of the most joyous rock and roll to emanate from New Orleans, or indeed anywhere, Huey 'Piano' Smith has died at the age of 89. Huey grew up in the Garden District near the Dew Drop Inn and learned to play piano by watching a neighbour play eight bar blues and his uncle playing Leroy Carr's 'How Long'. He became a regular performer at the Dew Drop in the early fifties alongside his musical partner Eddie 'Guitar Slim' Jones and backed many of the big names who would play there on a regular basis, including Smiley Lewis, Earl King and Shirley and Lee. He was also a session player at Cosimo's studio on tracks by many artists, including Lloyd Price, Little Richard, Charles Brown and Amos Milburn. Huey was signed to Johnny Vincent's Jackson based Ace label. Huey organised a a vocal group, the Clowns, to complement his own vocals, including Bobby Marchan, Junior Gordon and Roland Cook, and that group was responsible for their first big hit 'Rocking Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu.' The line up of the Clowns changed often and other members included Gerri Hall, Billy Roosevelt and John 'Scarface' Williams. Huey's biggest hit was of course the outstanding double sider 'Don't You Just Know It' and 'High Blood Pressure' which reached the national top ten. He recorded the original version of 'Sea Cruise' with Gerri Hall but Johnny Vincent replaced Gerri's vocals with those of Frankie Ford as he believed that the white teenager had more sales appeal - a move that allegedly broke Huey's heart. Huey left Ace in 1960 and after a short spell with Imperial gathered together some new Clowns, including Jimmy Williams, Curley Moore abd Benny Spellman. Using an old instrumental track the group came up with a new dance craze record 'The Popeye'and Huey attempted to keep up with new styles with records on Instant by the Pitter Pats and the Hueys. Huey played at Jazzfest in the seventies and early eighties but gave up the music business when he became a Jehovah's Witness and moved to Baton Rouge in the early eighties. Sadly I never got to see him play live although he did play once more at the Rhythm and Blues Foundation Pioneers Gala in New York in 2000. Despite that, Huey was and always will be one of the true originators of rock and roll. His songs have been covered widely by everyone from Bruce Springsteen, to Tom Jones, Paul Simon, Jerry Lee Lewis and the Grateful Dead. Allen Toussaint once said 'He had the perfect touch for what he was doing', and on his inmpact on other New Orleans pianists Dr John said 'It's a lot of him in all of them. Huey is a major part of the whole thing'. RIP Huey.