The Gretna Heritage Festival often revisits classic rock for its headliners, and this weekend’s no different. In old Gretna around the ferry dock, the festival has music on nine stages including headliners Grand Funk Railroad (minus Mark Farner and Craig Frost) tonight, Lynyrd Skynyrd (with guitarist Gary Rossington the only original member) and Cowboy Mouth [...]
Tag Archives: Louis Prima
Collectors Items?
February 28, 2011 – 4:18 pm
In a recent blog post, I questioned art4now’s “Vintage Poster Values,” which documents what Jazz Fest posters cost when they were first sold and what they cost now from art4now. Out of curiosity, I decided to follow a number of Jazz Fest posters up for auction on eBay. Of the nine Jazz Fest poster auctions [...]
Louis Prima Centennial Colloquium
December 10, 2010 – 2:48 pm
Louis Prima, the great New Orleans singer, trumpeter and entertainer, would be 100 years old this year, and as part of the ongoing celebrations of his legacy, Tulane University is hosting a free public colloquium this Saturday, December 11, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Freeman Auditorium. After an opening speech from Tulane’s [...]
Louis Prima 100 Years Later
December 1, 2010 – 12:05 am
Louis Prima would have been 100 this year. Jazz Fest honored him this year with a series of Prima-themed shows, and on Saturday, December 11, the Louis Prima Centennial Colloquium will be held in Tulane’s Freeman Auditorium. The colloquium has been organized by Bruce Raeburn of Tulane’s Hogan Jazz Archive, and he contends that Prima [...]
July 2010 Letters
July 1, 2010 – 12:01 am
BUNK’S SAINTS Hank Cherry’s piece on Bunk Johnson in your June 2010 edition is quite interesting and to the best of my knowledge completely accurate, but it leaves out one important historical fact. It was Bunk’s recordings and regular playing of “When the Saints Go Marching In” that turned it into the musical icon that [...]
Bobby Lonero: Did He or Didn’t He?
June 1, 2010 – 12:01 am
Days after our May issue hit the stands, we received an email from Gia Prima, Louis Prima’s widow. “Our Web site, LouisPrima.com has a page (“The Witnesses”) on the complete history of the Witnesses and all of its members, throughout the years,” she wrote. “You will notice that there is no Bobby Lonero! He never [...]
The Gravy: In the Kitchen with Gia Prima
May 1, 2010 – 12:33 am
“First of all, I’m Italian. I come from a beautiful Napolitano family that settled in the area of Trenton, New Jersey, in a place called Chambersburg. And that’s where all of the Italians seemed to settle when they came to this country. My great, great grandfather, Gennaro Chianese, was the founder of the Italian festival [...]
What Happens in Vegas…
May 1, 2010 – 12:12 am
Try to separate fact from fiction where Las Vegas is concerned. Long before the “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” marketing campaign, a shroud of myth hovered over everything and everybody worth remembering. Martin Scorsese made this a theme in Casino as the movie focused on memory with its extensive use of voiceovers to [...]
Pizza, Pizza!
April 24, 2010 – 10:37 pm
I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Gia Prima, wife of the late Louis Prima, and she told me a story of how fellow Italians used to call her and say nothing but “pizza, pizza” when she picked up the phone. Mrs. Gia repeated this to me in a voice that sounded like an out-of-breath [...]
Going to Extremes
April 6, 2010 – 9:45 am
What with the “Louis, Louis” Stage at this weekend’s French Quarter Fest and the celebration of his 100th anniversary at Jazz Fest, Louis Prima’s been on my mind. Supporters who’ve argued for his enduring relevance point with mechanical regularity to David Lee Roth’s cover of “Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody” (1985) and Brian Setzer’s [...]
