Preston Lauterbach

Back to New Orleans in 1963! First you’re backstage at the auditorium with Smiling Lewis (l), Danny White (c), and one of their pals (ID, anyone?):

Don’t dally, head over to Sax Kari’s record shop/studio, where Wardell Quezergue is hanging out:

Finally, how about a little pinball with Esquerita?

As always, thanks go to the time machine pilot, Mr. Sax Kari, here in an Atlanta motel room ca. 1970, where he was promoting a James Brown show. If you enjoyed these, please check out earlier installments, I & II, plus Sax’s documentation of a Ray Charles show.

Tags: Sax Kari

More from the chitlin’ circuit’s jack-of-all trades. First, promotion man Dave Clark, left, and Ernie K-Doe, singer of “Mother-In-Law,” in New Orleans, 1962-3. It looks to me like the Magnolia Homes in the background, which would put them across La Salle Street from the Dew Drop, but that’s just a guess.

Next, one of the world’s oldest teenagers, Rufus Thomas, at radio station WDIA in Memphis, 1963. Sax was pounding the pavement for New Orleans’ AFO Records. Not sure if the side pictured is by the Nookie Boys, Prince La La, Willie T, or Mac Rebennack. Rufus digs!

Same trip, Sax, left, downtown with Dick “Cane” Cole at the apparently un-air conditioned studios of WLOK. Cole emceed at Sunbeam Mitchell‘s Club Paradise in South Memphis, and brought his stage persona to the airwaves. I’m guessing his nickname comes from the Memphis pronunciation of King as in Nat “King” Cole.

 Come back soon for more time machine!

Tags: Sax Kari