VA - The Big Easy - Five Classic Albums From New Orleans Plus (You Always Hurt The One You Love / Ya Ya / I Know / You Talk Too Much / Mother In Law) (2024 Digitally Remastered) (2024)

At the time of this writing we heard the sad news of the passing on April 7th 2024 at age 87 years of Clarence “Frogman” Henry. We would like to dedicate this classic album release to him.

For our latest R&B compilation AVID have chosen five artists all born in New Orleans, the home of rhythm & blues. Fittingly we kick off with the late Clarence “Frogman” Henry, whose croaking vocal on one of his hits “Aint Got No Home” was to bequeath him his life-long nickname “Frogman”. Covered famously by The Band on the opening track of their 1973 Moondog Matinee album, this track can be found amongst the bonus songs on CD1. We also include both his greatest hits (I Don’t Know Why I Love You (But I Do) and You Always Hurt The One You Love. Lee Dorsey comes next with his “Ya Ya” album made after a meeting with legendary New Orleans writer and producer Allen Toussaint in 1961 and featuring his million selling hit “Ya Ya”. Famously Lee Dorsey after a short hiatus, would later go on to have two massive hits in the sixties, Holy Cow and Working In A Coalmine, again working with Toussaint, but Ya Ya is where it all started for him! Barbara George comes next and you could be forgiven for not knowing her very well or even at all! However, her talent is on display here on her one and only album where she wrote 11 of the 12 songs featured, including her massive Billboard Number 3 hit “I Know”. Covered by no less than the likes of Ike & Tina Turner, Freddie King. The Merseybeats and much later the great Bonnie Raitt, herself a great champion of the blues and R&B. Hovering over piano and tenor sax duties here is the legendary producer Harold Battiste. Joe Jones is up next with his only album release named after his big hit “You Talk Too Much”, the single of which hit number 3 in the 1961 Billboard charts. Harold Battiste again turns up playing tenor sax this time. Joe’s big claim to fame was in discovering The Dixie Cups and possibly Shirley & Lee, although history tells us we must be a little careful with the credits Joe claimed for himself! He did however go on to be a leading advocate for black R&B music publishing rights when he formed his own publishing company in 1973. Finally we come to Ernie K Doe whose Billboard Number 1 hit, “Mother In Law” is the title of his one and only album and the name Allen Toussaint again appears as the producer and writer along with Ernie who is also credited with writing most of the other songs on the album. As with all AVID releases, we hope you enjoy this classic set and check out our extensive catalogue for more great music across pop, R&B, country, rock n roll, rockabilly, jazz, blues and many other musical genres.