If somebody didn't get cut up and beat the shit out of someone, the dance was considered bad. I was raised that way." --Huey Meaux
"I'm going to record 'Old Shep' in rock and roll - only Old Shep is gonna die in my song. I think I'll send him up to Elvis's place and let it bite the hell out of him."-- Jerry Lee Lewis
Huey Meaux's non-stop chatter in the regional patois made him local celebrity.The 'Crazy Cajun' put Swamp Pop' on the map.
1959: Rod Bernard This Should Go On Forever
Barbara Lynn Ozen born in Beaumont in 1942
The daughter of Creole parents from the other Golden Triangle (LA)
'Black Elvis' Barbara
The daughter of Creole parents from the other Golden Triangle (LA)
'Black Elvis' Barbara
You'll Lose A Good Thing- June, '62:At 20 years old, Barbara was one of the first female guitar playing singer-songwriters (black or white) to make the charts.
spent three weeks at #1 R&B toppling
Ray Charles'
I Can't Stop Loving You
Sir Douglas Quintet She's About A Mover #13 pop 1965
"She's About a Mover" was a hit, but by 1966, Meaux was struggling to get his other artists on the air.
"Huey called and asked if I knew any party girls," recalls a friend, eager to please the local music legend. The kid convinced a 16-year-old hanger-on at the radio station to accompany Meaux to a Nashville convention for $300. Unfortunately for Meaux, not long after the convention ended, his contact was busted on narcotics charges. The young man cut a deal with the authorities to have the drug charges dropped in return for telling them what he knew about Meaux and the underage girl. Meaux was convicted of conspiring to violate the White Slave Traffic Act.
Sentenced to three years in federal prison, Meaux was incarcerated for eight months at a federal facility in Seagoville, Texas and received a full pardon from President Carter.
After his release from prison in 1969, Meaux seemed to be a changed man. According to associates at the time, it wasn't a change for the better.
"Huey came out of prison with a lot of new friends," recalls promoter Steve Gladson. "It was very intimidating for a lot of us. We had never met convicted murderers."
KILLER
ROOTS
ROOTS
Southern Roots Session TMI Studio, Memphis
29 September 1973
- it was Jerry's birthday - he was 38!
29 September 1973
- it was Jerry's birthday - he was 38!
Down in Memphis, the Killer was in rare form. Yep, Jerry Lee Lewis was making a record - 18 cuts, to be precise, at TMI Studios. "It's just like a circus," said Jerry Williams, president of TMI, casting an eye over the 30-odd souls gathered in the control room. Now, this was no ordinary session - if any Jerry Lee session can be called ordinary, and that's open to doubt. The Killer was going back to his roots, and he was, taking Carl Perkins, the MG's (Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn, and Al Jackson, Jr.), Tony Joe White, Mark Lindsay (of Paul Revere's Raiders), the Memphis Horns, and his own Memphis Beats along with him.
The album? Southern Roots.
"We fought," Huey P. Meaux told Colin Escott, "but we delivered."
Meaux was one of those colorful characters who gave southern writers prime source material and who made outsiders wonder if they were being put on. A Cajun named after Louisiana dictator Huey ("Kingfish") Long, Meaux had worked in all aspects of the record business, and in September 1973 he was glad to be in his own loud clothes instead of what he had been wearing most recently: prison garb. Upon his release he had re-established contact with Mercury. Now, after agreeing with Mercury's vice president of artists and repertoire Charlie Fach that a pure Jerry Lee album was the cure to everyone's ills, he was signed to produce such an LP.
The resulting set, Southern Roots, was recorded virtually nonstop over three days and nights in Memphis. Meaux enjoyed extraordinary connections, so he was able to assemble a group that was undoubtedly Jerry Lee's most sympathetic accompaniment since his 1964 tour.
He recruited guitarist Steve Cropper, bassist Donald ("Duck") Dunn, and drummer Al Jackson, the essential Stax rhythm section, as the core band.
Then he added other top-of-the line musicians like organist Augie Meyers of the Sir Douglas Quintet, the original Memphis Horns, members of the Memphis Beats, and Carl Perkins. Mack Vickery contributed harmonica, vocals, and enough craziness to be allowed in the same room with Meaux and Jerry Lee.
Recording conditions were chaotic, to put it mildly. Musicians, family members, delivery men, ex-girlfriends, and people just off the street wandered around, pushed engineers out of the way, and slept on the floor.
Unlike the London session earlier in the year, where producer Steve Rowland tried to tone down his charges' behavior and instead made everyone more nervous, Meaux encouraged all in his kingdom to whoop it up. The unwieldy Southern Roots sessions were not designed with controlled behavior in mind, but they did yield what was unquestionably the most spirited and sustained studio album of Jerry Lee's long and spirited career. The album was subtitled Back Home to Memphis and featured Jerry Lee's only post-Sun studio performances that consistently captured what made him special, different, and impossible to pigeonhole.
A filthy Mack Vickery tune written with Jerry Lee in mind, "Meat Man," kicked off the album and pinned itself in fifth gear. "Meat Man" was two minutes and forty seconds of vivid sexual boasts, delivered furiously and convincingly:
"They call me the meat man/You oughta see me eat ma'am."
He did not sing as if there were any possibility that the woman might decline his offer. Jerry Lee made listeners believe he had a "Maytag tongue with a sensitive taster."
He whooped it up in an avalanche of a solo and his least practiced shouting in years. His mind wasn't in a studio; as far as he was concerned he was in the darkest, toughest roadhouse in Mississippi. "Meat Man" was the most frankly sexual song of Jerry Lee's career, no small achievement. It was the first time in the studio since his glory days at Sun that he sounded truly free. Even when the song ended, he refused to stop, shouting, "Meat man, you mother!" until Meaux shut off the tape.
"When a Man Loves a Woman" was originally a hit for Percy Sledge, and Meaux's decision to record it hinted at his agenda more than any other song on Southern Roots. Meaux loved Memphis music, but one of his more brilliant ideas on this session was to act as if Jerry Lee's Memphis homecoming belonged at Stax, not Sun. For a decade the soul masters at Stax (and, later, Hi) had been the groundbreaking performers in town; in the mid- and late-sixties Sun was a clearing house for second-rate talent. Stax and Sun had different sounds, but they were linked because the country-blues fusion at Sun set the stage for Stax to come up with its country-rhythm-and-blues union. So in taking Jerry Lee back to a "Memphis sound," Meaux was both returning to past glories and nudging the Killer forward.
"When a Man Loves a Woman" was a colossal ballad with a bite, and Meaux's arrangements kept the focus on Jerry Lee's voice and piano, a logical idea that in 1973 seemed novel. The only thing wrong with "When a Man Loves a Woman" was that it faded out after only four minutes and twenty seconds. "Hold On I'm Coming," a suggestive hit for Sam and Dave, was another tune that originated in the Stax axis, and Jerry Lee recast it as a funky, soulful strut. "I made love to a lotta women in Tennessee," Jerry Lee sang as if he needed to remind himself. "I'm comin, coming¦" An alternate version was slightly faster and much looser.
Roscoe Gordon's "Just a Little Bit" got the Sir Douglas Quintet treatment, with Augie Meyers's charmingly trashy organ fighting Jerry Lee for room until piano and organ merged in an otherworldly, bass-heavy keyboard crash. The Killer's singing on this ideal funk-rocker was as ferocious as the song's rhythms. His wild pleading danced across the studio floor until it collapsed in a heap with all the other stragglers. "Born to Be a Loser" was a strong southern ballad with lyrics that Jerry Lee obviously related to: "Ain't nobody perfect," he sang. "Think about it." By the end of the song, he was addressing his potential partner as "you good-looking wench."
The second side of Southern Roots erupted to life with "Haunted House," originally a novelty hit for Memphis singer Gene Simmons. (In spite of its relative obscurity, "Haunted House" has garnered quite a celebrity fan club. On Halloween night 1981 Bruce Springsteen began a concert by being carried onstage in a coffin, jumping out, and singing it.) Those listening closely could hear liquor and pills rattling through the vocal. Fats Domino's "Blueberry Hill" was a straightforward, southern-ballad performance with a touch of Dixieland horns, still on the highest level.
The album ended with three songs as weird as the participants in the session; all three featured at least one "think about it." Doug Sahm's "The Revolutionary Man" was a barnstorming rocker, piano and horns once again battling organ. One suspected that good ole boy Jerry Lee's idea of revolution was different from that of confirmed hippie Sahm, but at least Jerry Lee acted like he knew what he was singing about. The backup singers, not even remotely annoying, sang, "Jerry is a rebel," in a melody swiped from Gino Washington's obscure "Gino Is a Coward." Earl ("Kit") Carson's "Big Blue Diamond" offered an unbuttoned solo, and the album slid home with another Mack Vickery song, "That Old Bourbon Street Church." The strong ballad was also thematically useful in that the Vickery numbers that opened and closed the album defined the two Jerry Lees.
In "Meat Man" he was a raving, cocksure stud; by "The Old Bourbon Street Church" he was vanquished, drunk, nearly crying, begging for forgiveness. In Vickery, a fan as well as a professional, Jerry Lee had found someone who could articulate his troubles better than he himself ever could.
Although they did not surface until the late eighties, another album's worth of first-rank tunes were cut at the Southern Roots sessions. Even better, full session tapes emerged in which fans could hear Jerry Lee, Meaux, and Vickery whoop it up. Everyone at that three-day session was intoxicated by talent as well as by alcohol; unlike the typical Jerry Lee seventies session, in which a truck load of hired guns played their parts and left as soon as the clock said they could, it sounded like the Southern Roots musicians were in Memphis because they loved the music. They were all crazy, but they were also crazy about music. With them cheering him on, Jerry Lee scorched for the last time in a long time.
Instead of reviving Jerry Lee's career, Southern Roots condemned it. The album never hit the Billboard chart because its ridiculous cover, a drawing of the Killer that looked positively antebellum, gave the LP all the appearances of yet another reissue of old cuts. All but the most loyal fans did not know that there were any new hits because nothing from Southern Roots got on the radio. In a pea-brained marketing move, Mercury opted for "Meat Man" as the first single. Granted, it was a stupendous song, but part of what made it fantastic was that it was a defiant, upraised middle finger at countrypolitan record formats. Jerry Lee made a sublime album, but nobody got to hear it. He resigned himself to the inevitable.
He ribbed producer Huey Meaux throughout the 50 hours of sessions, calling him "Papa Thibodeaux." One night he declared,
"I'm going to record 'Old Shep' in rock and roll - only Old Shep is gonna die in my song. I think I'll send him up to Elvis's place and let it bite the hell out of him."
The sessions were the setting for one auspicious occasion: Jerry was surprised by a birthday cake and champagne.
While Meaux was working to re-establish himself, Tex-Mex singer Freddy Fender was attempting to revive his own career. Like Meaux, Fender was an ex-con, having served time at Angola State Prison in Louisiana for a pot bust in the early '60s. Fender and Meaux had known each other for years but had never collaborated. At a dead end in his career, Fender turned to Meaux. He would later say that he had felt that he could trust Huey, since they had both been to prison.By the end of the ride, in 1980, Fender was strung out on dope and booze and bankrupt with $10 million in debts. He was also accusing Meaux of taking advantage of him through unscrupulous contracts. Huey, who had previously specialized in one-hit wonders, was ready to sever the relationship too, blaming Freddy for squandering his earnings.
watch the 45
1981
Meaux survived a bout with throat cancer. Save for one last novelty hit--Rockin' Sidney Simien's 1985 zydeco ditty (Don't Mess With) My Toot-Toot.
Meaux starting buying the rights to songs that were already hits. He claimed, for instance, to have bought the rights to Desi Arnaz's "Babalu" and boasted that the song netted him $12,000 a year; he also reportedly owns a good portion of soul singer Isaac Hayes' 1970s output.
In the studio, Meaux would at times become agitated and incoherent. His mouth was often dry and he was constantly smacking his lips -- telltale signs of cocaine use.
Detectives received a call claiming that Meaux was producing child pornography, they were more than a little intrigued -- especially since the tipster was Ben Meaux (huey's dad). After ten years of spiraling cocaine use and its attendant difficulties, the Houston Police (acting on tips from Meaux's own family) arrested him and brought him to his office at Sugar Hill to execute a search warrant in early 1996. Breaking down a locked door of his playroom was a physician's examining table, complete with gynecological stirrups, and just under 15 grams of cocaine in one of the drawers. There was also a king-sized bed and a dozen or so sex toys nearby. And strewn about the room and stuffed inside a large chest were hundreds of photographs and dozens of videos that police say Meaux had produced himself at Sugar Hill over the past 20 years. According to investigators, some of the photos were of nude girls as young as seven. Some of the videos (n/a) showed Meaux having sex with girls ranging in age from 12 to 16--among them, the two daughters of Meaux's former live-in girlfriend.
The 66-year-old Meaux was charged with possession of a controlled substance, possession of child pornography and two counts of aggravated sexual assault of a child. A few days later, he was slapped with a civil lawsuit by his two former common-law stepdaughters, who accused him of having sexually abused them for years. A frail, wasted-looking Meaux showed up for his court arraignment on January 31, but a few days later, he failed to keep an appointment to be fitted with an electronic monitoring device that a judge had ordered him to wear while out of jail on his $130,000 bond.
Huey Meaux was on the run, and he remains at large as of this writing.
After his release in 2002, he was shipped back to jail for violating his parole in February of 2003.
