Prince La La

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Prince La La (actually Lawrence Nelson * 1936 in New Orleans , Louisiana ; † 27. October 1963 ) was an American composer, guitarist and rhythm-and-blues singer, who work closely with the producer and music manager Harold Battiste worked . He is considered a one hit wonder and a mysterious figure. Despite his short period of activity, in which he recorded only six songs, Prince La La influenced several other artists. Mac Rebennack , in particular, adopted some elements of his style and appearances for the stage character Dr. John.

biography

family

Lawrence Nelson was born in New Orleans in 1936. The exact date of his birth is not documented. He grew up in the 9th Ward , the ninth district of his hometown, which was a social hotspot at the time. His father was the occasional musician Walter Nelson Sr. (1904–1984), known regionally as "Black Walter" or "Guitar Black", who played as a guitarist with the R&B singer Smiley Lewis , among others . His mother was Edna, geb. Clevin. Either the mother or the father organized the bar at Bar Picou , owned by clarinetist Alphonse Picou , and which attracted many African-American and Creole R&B musicians.

Edna and Walter Nelson Sr. had eight children; Lawrence Nelson's four years older brother Walter Jr. (1932–1962) was a guitarist as was the father; he played as "Papoose" Nelson first with Professor Longhair and then for more than a decade in the backing band of Fats Domino . The family also included R&B singer Jessie Hill , who was married to a sister of Lawrence and "Papoose" Nelson.

Little is known about Lawrence Nelson's childhood and adolescence. Mac Rebennack, who had known the Nelson family since the early 1950s, later said that Lawrence and his brother "Papoose" had "very, very hard lives" in a violent environment. Music was a way for her to escape this life.

Musical work

Prince La Las Producer and Mentor: Harold Battiste

Lawrence Nelson's childhood friend Oliver Morgan , who later had minor successes himself as an R&B singer, believed that Nelson never did anything other than play music and write songs. Nelson played guitar with his brother and father in the 1950s, and some sources report that Professor Longhair taught him singing.

In 1961, Nelson's brother-in-law, Jessie Hill, made contact with Harold Battiste, who was building the record label All For One Records (AFO) at the time . Hill had recently discovered the 19-year-old singer Barbara George and brought her to Battiste with the suggestion that she make the piece She Put the Hurt on Me, written by Lawrence Nelson, as her first AFO recording. Lawrence Nelson himself was there to audition the song. Battiste liked Nelson's singing style so much that he made the recording not with Barbara George, but with Lawrence Nelson. The recordings were made in June 1961 in Cosimo Matassa's Cosimo Recording Studios .

She Put the Hurt on Me was the first AFO single to hit the national market in the fall of 1961. On the B-side, Don't You Know Little Girl (I'm In Love) could be heard. She Put the Hurt on Me reached position 28 on the R&B charts.

In 1962, AFO released the artist's second single. The A-side features Gettin 'Married Soon , a song written by Charly Julien; the B-side contains Come Back To Me . The single did not reach any place in the charts. Nelson also recorded two other songs with Need You and Things Have Changed . They were no longer published during his lifetime and did not appear on a sampler until decades later.

The stage character Prince La La

Nelson's AFO recordings were marketed under the name Prince La La. "La La" was Lawrence Nelson's nickname from his youth, while the addition Prince came from Harold Battiste. For the cover of the single She Put the Hurt on Me , he had Nelson photographed in the costume of an exotic prince, reminiscent of Mardi Gras disguises. Nelson also performed live in this outfit.

death

Lawrence Nelson died in New Orleans on October 27, 1963. The details and background of his death have not been officially clarified and are still the subject of speculation. Even after almost 60 years, Prince La La himself and the circumstances of his death are still described in many publications as "mysterious".

In the approach, all representations assume that Nelson - like his brother "Papoose" one and a half years earlier - died as a result of a heroin overdose . Often there is a hint that Nelson accidentally administered the overdose. However, this assumption was doubted by some contemporaries. There have been a number of suspicions that Nelson’s dealer deliberately supplied him with poisoned heroin, either in revenge for Nelson’s wrongdoing or because of a money debt. Mac Rebennack, however, thought it possible that Nelson's family had something to do with his death. The family did not want one of the children to become a professional musician. In their eyes that was the lowest thing that could be done. There was "always a lot of argument" between the members of the Nelson family.

Oliver Morgan did not believe in an accidental overdose either. He addressed death in the 1964 AFO song Who Shot the La La , which became his only national hit. The song is often understood to mean that the term shot (shot ) meant the intravenous administration of contaminated or poisoned heroin (hot shot) .

Influence on Mac Rebennack

Inspired by Prince La La: “Dr. John "(Mac Rebennack)

The character of Prince La La influenced, among others, the New Orleans-born musician Mac Rebennack. Nelson and Rebennack had been friends since 1960. When Rebennack developed the concept album Gris-Gris in 1967 , which combined the musical currents of his hometown with the legends of New Orleans Voodoo and featured the fictional character of Dr. John created, he adopted the extraordinary carnival-style clothing style of Prince La La for him. According to Harold Battiste, the recordings of Dr. John's 1968 album Gris-Gris is similar to Prince La La's debut recordings. Nelson's singing style on the recording Need You , which was not released during his lifetime, is used as the model for the later Dr. Looks at John: “Anyone who hears the tapes knows where Dr. John is coming ”(Harold Battiste).

The sampler Gumbo Stew , released in 2013 under the Ace Records label, contains AFO original recordings by various artists. The cover shows Lawrence Nelson as Prince La La.

Discography: Singles

year title Catalog number Chart positions
Hot R&B Sides
All For One Records (AFO)
1961 She Put the Hurt on Me / Don't You Know Little Girl (I'm In Love) 45-101 28
1962 Gettin 'Married Soon / Come Back To Me 45-303 -

literature

  • Tom Aswell: Louisiana Rocks !: The True Genesis of Rock and Roll, Pelican Publishing, 2010, ISBN 9781455607839
  • John Broven: Rhythm and Blues in New Orleans , Pelican Publishing Company, Inc., 2016, ISBN 9781455619528
  • Gérard Herzhaft: Encyclopedia of the Blues , Hannibal, 1998, ISBN 9783854451327
  • Grace Lichtenstein, Laura Dankner: Musical Gumbo: The Music of New Orleans , WW Norton, 1993, ISBN 9780393034684
  • Per Oldaeus: Walter Nelson Sr. and Family , in: Lynn Abbott (Ed.): The Jazz Archivist, Volume 26 (2013), pp. 28 ff.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bob L. Eagle, Eric S. LeBlanc: Blues: A Regional Experience , ABC-CLIO, 2013, ISBN 9780313344244 , p. 181.
  2. ↑ Jerry Brock: In Memory: Uncle Lionel Batiste , in: Kim Vaz-Deville (Ed.): Walking Raddy: The Baby Dolls of New Orleans , University Press of Mississippi, 2018, ISBN 9781496817433 , p. 179.
  3. ↑ The sources are inconsistent on this. In his documentation Walter Nelson Sr. and Family , in: Lynn Abbott (Ed.): The Jazz Archivist, Volume 26 (2013), Per Oldaeus cites both versions at various points (for the father p. 29, for the mother p. 34).
  4. ↑ Per Oldaeus: Walter Nelson Sr. and Family , in: Lynn Abbott (Ed.): The Jazz Archivist, Volume 26 (2013), p. 31.
  5. ↑ John Broven: Rhythm and Blues in New Orleans , Pelican Publishing Company, Inc., 2016, ISBN 9781455619528 , p 93rd
  6. ↑ Per Oldaeus: Walter Nelson Sr. and Family , in: Lynn Abbott (Ed.): The Jazz Archivist, Volume 26 (2013), p. 34.
  7. ↑ a b c Per Oldaeus: Walter Nelson Sr. and Family , in: Lynn Abbott (Ed.): The Jazz Archivist, Volume 26 (2013), p. 33.
  8. ↑ a b c d Dan Philipps: How La La became a prince. www.homeofthegroove.com, August 12, 2005, accessed June 9, 2020 .
  9. ↑ a b c Tom Aswell: Louisiana Rocks !: The True Genesis of Rock and Roll , Pelican Publishing, 2010, ISBN 9781455607839 , p. 113.
  10. ↑ a b John Broven: Rhythm and Blues in New Orleans , Pelican Publishing Company, Inc., 2016, ISBN 9781455619528 .
  11. ^ Ed Ward: The History of Rock & Roll, Volume 1: 1920-1963 , Flatiron Books, 2016, ISBN 9781250071170 , p. 269.
  12. ↑ Chart information on www.billboard.com (accessed June 8, 2020).
  13. ↑ Bill Milkowski, Tim Hauser: Swing It !: An Annotated History of Jive , Billboard Books, 2001, ISBN 9780823076710 , p. 167.
  14. ^ Prince La La at www.discogs.com (accessed June 9, 2020).
  15. ^ Obituary for Oliver Morgan in the Philadelphia Inquirer, August 4, 2007 (accessed June 9, 2020).
  16. ↑ a b Jason Ankeny: Prince La La Biography. www.allmusic.com, accessed June 8, 2020 .
  17. ↑ Mike Greenblatt: Dr. John's “Gris-Gris” Turns 50. www.goldminemag.com, accessed June 8, 2018 .
personal data
SURNAME Prince La La
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nelson, Lawrence
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American musician
DATE OF BIRTH 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH New Orleans , Louisiana , USA
DATE OF DEATH October 27, 1963
Place of death New Orleans , Louisiana , USA