News & Updates — comedy

There are so many interesting artists born on July 15 that it is impossible in my schedule to write pieces about them. So here are some shorties, along with a video or two for each. --Francis Bebey / July 15, 1929 - May 28, 2001 This unique Cameroonian composer and his interesting DIY synth-pop crossed with traditional music has been justly making new fans in recent years. --James Jacson / July 15, 1932 - Aug 10, 1997 Happy cosmic birthday to James Jacson, one of my favorite characters from Sun Ra's Arkestra. Jacson is the one who was instructed to...

The Harlem-born entertainer, composer, vocalist and percussive stride pianist Thomas Fats Waller was the writer of great tunes like "Aint Misbehavin", "Honeysuckle Rose", "Squeeze Me", "Jitterbug Waltz", "What Did I Do (To Be So Black & Blue" and about four hundred others. He played piano, pipe organ and Hammond organ, and studied with James P. Johnson. He was a composer by 12 and cut his first records in '22 at the age of 18 after working early on in Vaudeville. He was a notable comic storyteller and composer of novelty tunes & piano rolls, and a playful presence on the...

The calypsonian Aldwyn Roberts became Lord Kitchener in 1945. He bumped around the Caribbean (including his native Trinidad, as well as Jamaica) before setting sail for the UK in '48, where he immediately hit with the classic "London Is The Place For Me". He was a popular and important figure in the West Indian community that was starting to move to the UK in huge numbers. Kitch caught the wave of popularity that calypso rode in the '50s, even touring Africa. In '62 he was back in his homeland and he was one of the biggest Caribbean stars in the...

Ernest Kador, better known as Ernie K-Doe, is a New Orleans legend. Famous for his hits "Mother-In-Law", "Later For Tomorrow" and "Here Come The Girls", he was a singer, wacky performance character, club owner, radio personality and Drum Buddy ally. "Here Come The Girls" became a hit after his death but remains a popular DJ cut and dance groover. A NOLA native and son of a Baptist minister, he started singing in church at seven and sang in gospel groups as a teen. In the early '50s he moved to Chicago and broke into the scene there, singing with the...

One of the Miami greats, Clarence Reid was a top songwriter and producer for many artists ("Rockin' Chair" and "90% Of Me" by Gwen McCrae, "A Woman Will Do Wrong" by Helene Smith, "Clean-Up Woman" by Betty Wright, "Sound Your Funky Horn" by KC & the Sunshine Band, "Freak In, Freak Out" by Timmy Thomas) as well as his own great cuts ("Nobody But You", "Masterpiece"). Really, there are just too many to mention here. Later he became the party-record superhero Blowfly, a persona he toured with until his death in 2016. Here's perhaps my personal favorite tunes he recorded...