James Booker

All Music Guide:

Certainly one of the most flamboyant New Orleans pianists in recent memory, James Carroll Booker III was a major influence on the local rhythm & blues scene in the '50s and '60s. Booker's training included classical instruction until age 12, by which time he had already begun to gain recognition as a blues and gospel organist on radio station WMRY every Sunday. By the time he was out of high school he had recorded on several occasions, including his own first release, "Doing the Hambone," in 1953. In 1960, he made the national charts with "Gonzo," an organ instrumental, and over the course of the next two decades played and recorded with artists as varied as Lloyd Price, Aretha Franklin, Ringo Starr, the Doobie Brothers, and B.B. King. In 1967, he was convicted of possession of heroin and served a one-year sentence at Angola Penitentiary (referred to as the "Ponderosa"), which took the momentum out of an otherwise promising career. The rediscovery of "roots" music by college students during the '70s (focusing primarily on "Fess" by Professor Longhair) provided the opportunity for a comeback by 1974, with numerous engagements at local clubs like Tipitina's, The Maple Leaf, and Snug Harbor. As with "Fess," Booker's performances at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festivals took on the trappings of legendary "happenings," and he often spent his festival earnings to arrive in style, pulling up to the stage in a rented Rolls Royce and attired in costumes befitting the "Piano Prince of New Orleans," complete with a cape. Such performances tended to be unpredictable: he might easily plant some Chopin into a blues tune or launch into a jeremiad on the CIA with all the fervor of a "Reverend Ike-meets-Moms Mabley" tag-team match.

Booker's left hand was simply phenomenal, often a problem for bass players who found themselves running for cover in an attempt to stay out of the way; with it he successfully amalgamated the jazz and rhythm & blues idioms of New Orleans, adding more than a touch of gospel thrown in for good measure. His playing was also highly improvisational, reinventing a progression (usually his own) so that a single piece would evolve into a medley of itself. In addition, he had a plaintive and seering vocal style which was equally comfortable with gospel, jazz standards, blues, or popular songs. Despite his personal eccentricities, Booker had the respect of New Orleans' best musicians, and elements of his influence are still very much apparent in the playing of pianists like Henry Butler and Harry Connick, Jr.

Wikipedia:

James Carroll Booker III (December 17, 1939 – November 8, 1983) was a New Orleans rhythm and blues musician born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Booker's unique style combined rhythm and blues with jazz standards. Musician Dr. John described Booker as “the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced.”Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Biography[edit]

Booker was the son and grandson of Baptist ministers, both of whom played the piano. He spent most of his childhood on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where his father pastored a church. Booker received a saxophone as a gift from his mother, but he demonstrated a stronger interest in the keyboard. He first played organ in his father's churches.

After returning to New Orleans in his early adolescence, Booker attended the Xavier Academy Preparatory School. He learned some elements of his keyboard style from Tuts Washington and Edward Frank. Booker was highly skilled in classical music and played Bach and Chopin, among other composers. He also mastered and memorized solos by Erroll Garner, and Liberace. His thorough background in piano literature may have enabled his original and virtuosic interpretations of jazz and other popular music. These performances combined elements of stride, blues, gospel and Latin piano styles.

Booker made his recording debut in 1954 on the Imperial label, with "Doin' the Hambone" and "Thinkin' 'Bout My Baby." This led to some session work with Fats Domino, Smiley Lewis, and Lloyd Price.

In 1958, Arthur Rubinstein gave a concert in New Orleans. Afterwards, eighteen-year-old Booker was introduced to the concert pianist and played several tunes for him. Rubinstein was astonished, saying "I could never play that... never at that tempo." (The Times-Picayune, 1958) Booker also became known for his flamboyant personality amongst his peers.

After recording a few other singles, he enrolled as an undergraduate in Southern University's music department. In 1960, Booker's "Gonzo" reached number 43 on the U.S. Billboard chart, and number 3 on the R&B chart. This was followed by some moderately successful singles. In the 1960s, he turned to drugs, and in 1970 served a brief sentence in Angola Prison for possession.

Professor Longhair and Ray Charles were among his important influences.

In 1973 Booker recorded The Lost Paramount Tapes at Paramount Studios in Hollywood, California with members of the Dr. John band which included John Boudreaux on drums, Jessie Hill on percussion, Alvin Robinson on guitar and vocals, Richard "Didymus" Washington on percussion, David Lastie on sax and Dave Johnson on bass. This album was produced by the former Dr. John and Sweathog bassist, David L. Johnson and Daniel J. Moore. The master tapes disappeared from the Paramount Recording Studios library, but a copy of some of the mixes made near the time of the recordings was discovered in 1992, which resulted in a CD release. Booker played organ in Dr. John's Bonnaroo Revue touring band in 1974 and appeared as a sideman on albums by Ringo Starr, John Mayall, The Doobie Brothers, Labelle and Maria Muldaur throughout this period.

Booker's performance at the 1975 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival earned him a recording contract with Island Records. His album with Island, Junco Partner, was produced by Joe Boyd, who had previously recorded Booker on sessions for the Muldaurs' records. In January 1976, Booker joined the Jerry Garcia Band; following two concerts in Palo Alto, California that found titular bandleader Garcia "backing up... Booker on most numbers," he was replaced by Grateful Dead pianist Keith Godchaux.

Booker recorded a number of albums while touring Europe in 1977, including New Orleans Piano Wizard: Live!, which was recorded at his performance in the 'Boogie Woogie and Ragtime Piano Contest' in Zurich, Switzerland—the album won the Grand Prix du Disque. He also played at the Nice and Montreux Jazz Festivals in 1978 and recorded a session with the BBC during this time. Fourteen years later, a recording in Leipzig from this tour would become the last record to be produced in the former East Germany—it was entitled Let's Make A Better World!.

From 1977 to 1982 he was the house pianist at the Maple Leaf Bar in the Carrollton neighborhood of uptown New Orleans. Recordings during this time made by John Parsons were released as Spider on the Keys and Resurrection of the Bayou Maharajah.

His last commercial audio recording Classified was made in 1982 and was completed in four hours, according to the producer Scott Billington. By this time, Booker's physical and mental condition had deteriorated.

At the end of October, 1983, film-maker Jim Gabour captured Booker's final concert performance. The footage from the Maple Leaf Bar in New Orleans was broadcast on Cox Cable and a six-and-a-half-minute improvisation "Seagram's Jam" featured on Gabour's film All Alone with the Blues.

Booker died ten days later, on November 8, 1983, while seated in a wheelchair, waiting to be seen at the emergency room at New Orleans' Charity Hospital. The cause of death was renal failure related to his significant history of heroin use and chronic alcoholism (Orleans Parish Coroner's Death Certificate). Booker's death was mourned by music lovers.

Harry Connick Jr. was a student and close friend of Booker and Harry Connick Sr. would discuss law with Booker during his visits to the Connick home. Connick, Henry Butler, and Dr. John, among others, have recorded songs with titles and musical styles referencing Booker. Connick explained his mentor's piano-playing style in an interview: "Nothing was harder than that. It's insane. It's insanity."

Transcriptions by Joshua Paxton (with Tom McDermott and Andy Fielding) of Booker's playing are available in "The James Booker Collection" and "New Orleans Piano Legends", both published by The Hal Leonard Corporation.

Patchwork: A Tribute to James Booker is a 2003 release consisting of a compilation of his songs performed by various pianists.

The latest Booker album, released in June 2007, is Manchester '77, which consists of a live performance recorded in October 1977 at The Lake Hotel, Belle Vue, Manchester with Norman Beaker on guitar.

It has been speculated that his song "Gonzo" was the inspiration for the use of the word gonzo to describe Hunter S. Thompson's journalistic style.Cite error: There are <ref> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist}} template (see the help page).

Bayou Maharajah: The Tragic Genius of James Booker[edit]

A feature-length documentary about Booker Bayou Maharajah: The Tragic Genius of James Booker, directed by Lily Keber, premiered at the SXSW festival on March 14, 2013. Keber raised funds on the Kickstarter website to complete the film, as she needed to cover licensing costs to include all of the "concert footage, home movie, funky photo and unreleased audio" that she uncovered across the U.S. and Europe. Between December 2012 and January 2013, the Kickstarter campaign received US$18,323 from 271 backers—Keber's goal was US$15,000—who responded to the director's motivation: "After so many years of simmering in obscurity, it's time for James Booker to be introduced to the world!"

The film documents Booker's life, from his Baptist upbringing through to his solitary death at the Charity Hospital. In addition to coverage of Booker's significant influence upon Connick and his collaborations with prominent artists, Keber also documents the musician's heroin use and the deterioration in his mental health. In its review of the documentary, the All About Jazz publication refers to Booker as a "jazz genius." As of June 2, 2013, Keber seeks a film distributor for the wider distribution of Bayou Maharajah: The Tragic Genius of James Booker, but the film will continue on the festival circuit until a deal is secured.

Keber's film was shown in May 2013—in the "Golden Rock Documentary" category—at the Little Rock Film Festival that is held annually on the banks of the Arkansas River in Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S. In June and August 2013, the film was part of the program of the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) and producer Nathaniel Kohn attended as a representative. Kohn participated in a brief interview and explained the importance of the research process:

Research was key to discovering Booker and his music. He died in 1983 and many of the people who knew him are either dead or reaching that certain age when memories start to fade. So we talked to a lot of people and those conversations led to boxes of old photographs and tapes, video and music libraries in the States and in Europe, and the vaults of television stations, record companies, and museums. Over three years of research went into this production.

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