New Orleans singer and pianist Frankie Ford, who was best known for his 1959 hit “Sea Cruise,” died at his home in Gretna, LA on Monday. He was 76.

Ford, who was born in Gretna in 1939, became known as the “New Orleans Dynamo” in the late 1950s, when “Sea Cruise” went gold and racked up over a million sales on its way to No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. He was inducted into the Lousiana Music Hall of Fame in 2010 and was the recipient of Lifetime Achievement honors at Offbeat’s 2012 Best of the Beat Awards, though he was unable to attend the latter ceremony due to poor health.

Bunny Matthews sat down with Ford in 2005 to discuss his early days in New Orleans, the writing of “Sea Cruise” and more for Offbeat.  You can check out a transcript of the interview here.