03/19/2024
Belated birthday wishes in heaven to Lloyd Price .Why then am I posting a photo of James Booker ?Because the central tenet of price’s career was his exploitation of New Orleans culture for personal gain and in the early 70s price had an exciting big band stocked with new Orleans players that most of all featured Booker on organ. (It is chronicled on the This Is My Band album on Double LL)and for those like myself who love to dig beneath the G rated retelling of music history the Price Booker relationship was legendarily combustible. Price was a no nonsense player who learned quickly upon his arrival in New York that if you were a small black music entity ,the more muscle you played with the better off you were and Price did just that . Booker by contrast was a free spirit, who was ,under the best of circumstances, was erratic about his professional responsibilities and prone to missing gigs .according to lore Prices solution to this problem was to keep Booker literally handcuffed to his hotel bed during tour stops . I was in Jazz fest in New Orleans in 1979 and Booker , his local star shining ,had a solo keyboard gig at the Sanger Playhouse, where he played outside in the street .There the crowds were so thin, thst you literally stand 5 feet away from him and as Igot that close I was powerfully struck by his fragile, effete stateliness ..I felt like if I poked him with a stick he would crumble .For some reason. I acted off that impulse and face-to-face with just a touch of wiseass, I said “ so how’s Lloyd Price ?Without missing a beat Booker looked back at me with all his effete dignity , and said resolutely “Lloyd Price knows how to reach me.”
Found on Google from spectator.co.uk
Hip Hop. Funk. Blues. Soul. New Orleans. Latin Boogaloo. Boogie. House. Electronic. Jazz. R&B
