His piano enjoying included theboogie types of Pete Johnson, Meade Lux Lewis, and Albert Ammons, the jazzstyle of Jelly Roll Morton and the rhythm-and-blues model of Fat Domino. Steve Huey of AllMusic famous that “On the peak of his sport, Smith epitomized New Orleans R&B at its most infectious and rollicking, as showcased on his traditional signature tune, ‘Don’t You Simply Know It.”
Smith was born within the Central Cityneighborhood of New Orleans. He was influenced by the modern work ofProfessor Longhair. He turned recognized for his shuffling right-handed break on the piano that influenced different Southern gamers.
Smith wrote his first track “Robertson Avenue Boogie”, named after the road the place he lived, on the piano, when he was eight years outdated. He carried out the tune with a buddy, with the 2 billing themselves as Slick and Darkish. Smith attended McDowell Excessive Faculty andXavier College of Louisiana in New Orleans.
When Smith was fifteen, he started working in golf equipment and recording together with his flamboyant accomplice, Eddie Jones, who rose to fame as Guitar Slim. When Smith was eighteen, in 1952, he signed arecording contract with Savoy Data, which launched his first recognized single, “You Made Me Cry”. In 1953 Smith recorded with Earl King.
In 1955, Smith turned the piano participant with Little Richard’s first band in periods for Specialty Data.The identical yr he additionally performed piano on a number of studio periods for different artists, comparable to Lloyd Worth.Two of the periods resulted in hits for Earl King (“These Lonely Lonely Nights”) andSmiley Lewis (“I Hear You Knocking”).
In 1957, he shaped a band, Huey “Piano” Smith and His Clowns, with Bobby Marchan, and signed a long-term contract with Ace Data, represented by former Specialty report producer Johnny Vincent. They hit the Billboardcharts with a number of singles in succession, together with “Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu”.
The report was issued as “Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu Half 1” on the A-side, lyrics by John Vincent, and “Rockin’ Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu Half 2”, aninstrumental, on the flip facet. The recordsold over a million copies, achievinggold disc standing.
In 1958, Vin Data, a subsidiary of Ace Data, launched a preferred single, “Little Chickee Wah Wah”, with Clowns singer Gerri Corridor, below the billing of Huey and Jerry. (This track is typically confused with the equally titled 1956 single “Chickie Wah Wah”, by Bobby Marchan, which has fully totally different lyrics, tempo, chord construction and melody; the Vincent-Smith composition is constructed across the melody of the outdated black kids’s play track “Little Sally Walker.”)
In the meantime, Ace Data launched a number of extra singles by Huey “Piano” Smith and His Clowns, together with “We Like Birdland”, “Effectively I’ll Be John Brown”, and “Don’t You Know Yockomo” (a canopy model of which, recorded by the New Zealand artist Dinah Lee, reached no 1 in each New Zealand and Australia in 1964).
The Clowns’ most well-known single, launched in 1958, was “Don’t You Simply Know It” backed with “Excessive Blood Stress.” This hit quantity 9 on the Billboard Pop chart and quantity 4 on the Rhythm and Blues chart. It was their second million vendor.
In 1959, Ace Data erased Smith’s vocal monitor from “Sea Cruise”, the now-classic single Smith had composed,organized and carried out, and changed it with a vocal monitor by the white singerFrankie Ford. The track was successful for Ford.
