Professor Longhair - Big Chief Part 1 & Part 2 - 45 rpm

Well, here's a great two-sided 45 for y'all.

This was recorded in 1964, when the popular acts in the charts were a lot of pretty good white bands and a lot of really good black performers.  Many of these acts were quite successful at creating sonic excitement.  'Fess was way off in the corner, tearing it up, more or less in private.  I had no idea at the time that he was even there.  Dude probably never had two nickels to rub together.

I only figured out later on that "New Orleans" was code for "this shit is the bomb."  I had lots of clues. I'd had Little Richard records in 1956, but I was only eight years old at the time.  Gary "U.S." Bonds with the great "New Orleans," that was a clue right there.  Don't you just know it?  It's finger-popping time!  I was only ten or twelve by then, and it took me another few years to work it out.  Professor Longhair was pretty deep, I had to wait to get to his level.  

I read an interview with the Great Man one time.  The interviewer asked the Professor what key he preferred to play in.  'Fess replied, "I don't know, I probably plays in all of 'em."  The man WAS music, he didn't have to think about it. 

Oh, it's enough to make one long for transcendence, for the survival of the human spirit.  For life-after-death, if you will.  It's just too horrible to think that some treasures are gone for good.  God knows, there are people, dead people, that I would never want to see again in a million years.  But there are a few, a precious few, that I would really enjoy seeing and/or hearing again.  I'd be a better human being if I thought for a minute that there was a heaven and 'Fess was sitting at the piano up there, playing for the party.  How sad is that?