Happy Fat Tuesday from Professor Longhair

So I just learned from my lovely and better-educated wife that "Mardi Gras" is French for "Fat Tuesday." I knew Mardi Gras was on Fat Tuesday, but I didn't know it meant Fat Tuesday. And I still don't know what "Fat Tuesday"really  means.

Actually, I do — it means I need to get to New Orleans pronto. I have spent quality time in just about every other music capital in the U.S. — Memphis, Chicago, New York, Austin, Storrs — but New Orleans has thus far eluded me. That will change soon.



So in honor of the beginning of the Mardi Gras season, Rock Turtleneck pays tribute to Professor Longhair, one of the musical patriarchs of the Big Easy. Here he is doing one of his signature tunes, "Tipitina."

I'm guessing the famous New Orleans nightclub Tipitina's is named after the song and not vice versa.

The Professor, who was born Henry Roeland Byrd in 1918 and died in 1980, was one of the originators or the New Orleans sound later popularized by Fats Domino and Dr. John, among others.

He gets some pretty magical sounds out of his run-of-the-mill Baldwin piano, so that alone should tell you there is some voodoo goin' on. Here's the Professor getting down with Dr. John, The Meters and some other New Orleans luminaries on his classic tune "Big Chief."



Buy The Very Best of Professor Longhair - 35 tracks for just $9.99 - on iTunes here.