Huey “Piano” Smith & Various Artists – Just Clownin’: More Of The Best (CD)

Description

Release Date: 2010

Label: Great American Music Hall

Track List

1. I Tried – Curley Moore, Gerri Hall & Benny Spellman
2. Rockin’ Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Flu – Huey “Piano” Smith And The Clowns
3. Ending Of Love – Norman Williams
4. Fortune Teller – The Bobbetts
5. Somewhere – Benny Spellman & Gerri Hall
6. Educated Fool – Danny White
7. Barbara – The Clowns
8. It Was A Thrill – Pearl Edwards
9. I Don’t Want A Broken Heart – (Unidentified Vocalist)
10. Sea Cruise – Frankie Ford
11. Mississippi – The Clowns
12. She’s Coming Home – Curley Moore
13. Walking Down The Street – The Bobbetts
14. That Will Get It – Jesse Thomas
15. Blow Wind Blow – Junior Gordon
16. Alimony – Peg Leg Martin & The Clowns
17. I Think You’re Jiving Me – Huey Smith & Gerri Hall
18. They Gonna Do What They Wanna Do – Curley Moore
19. Chitt’lins – Jesse Thomas
20. Don’t You Just Know It – Huey “Piano” Smith And The Clowns

Notes

As a songwriter, performer, occasional vocalist, session man, bandleader, and superb Crescent City piano player, Huey “Piano” Smith was essential to the success of Johnny Vincent’s New Orleans label Ace Records in the late ’50s and early ’60s. Not only did Smith chart in 1957 with his classic “Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu,” he also wrote the 1959 smash “Sea Cruise” for Frankie Ford and had his hand in nearly everything that Vincent recorded, and most — if not all — of it holds up well some 60 years later. This wonderful set has both “Pneumonia” and “Sea Cruise” as well as over a dozen other gems from Ace and its subsidiary, Vin Records. Vincent, much like Jamaica’s reggae producers, would often use a stellar backing track to build new songs, trying out different singers and approaches over the original track, and the Ace vaults feature a ton of unreleased material of this sort that is of an unusually high quality, and tracks here like “Alimony,” a delightful, fun song about a monkey dealing with the divorce courts that was Ford’s follow-up to “Sea Cruise,” feature different vocalists (Peg Leg Martin voices this version of “Alimony”) that bring out different shadings and nuances in the songs — all with Smith’s piano as a rhythmic anchor. There’s so much to love in this set, including Curley Moore, Gerri Hall, and Benny Spellman’s “I Tried,” Smith’s intimate and demo-sounding “Mississippi,” and a Smith duet with Gerri Hall, “I Think You’re Jivin’ Me,” and if there are more expansive surveys of Smith’s contributions to Ace Records out there, the rarity of some of the tracks presented in this set makes it more than distinctive.