Eddie Bo

A sorely underappreciated veteran of the New Orleans R&B scene, singer/songwriter/producer/pianist Eddie Bo evolved into one of the city's foremost funk players during the late '60s and early '70s, although he never had a national hit commensurate with his musical standing. Born Edwin Joseph Bocage on September 20, 1930, Bo was raised in the Algiers and Ninth Ward sections of New Orleans by a musical family; uncles Peter and Charles and cousin Henry all played in post-WWI jazz orchestras (including A.J. Piron's), and his mother was a pianist in the Professor Longhair style. Bo served in the Army after high school, and returned to New Orleans to study at the Grunewald School of Music, where he discovered bebop pianists like Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson. He started playing around the jam-heavy New Orleans jazz scene, but soon discovered that R&B was more popular and accessible, not to mention better-paying. He joined the house band at Club Tijuana under the name Spider Bocage, and later formed the Spider Bocage Orchestra, a professional backing band that supported many prominent blues and R&B artists of the day, including Ruth Brown, Earl King, Lloyd Price, Big Joe Turner, Smiley Lewis, and Guitar Slim. Bo cut his first record in 1955 for the Ace label, and would go on to release more singles than any other New Orleans artist save Fats Domino. One of his singles for Apollo, the local hit "I'm Wise," was later adapted by Little Richard into the hit "Slippin' and Slidin'." In addition to those labels, Bo also recorded a few singles for Chess and Checker, but did the majority of his '50s work for the small New Orleans label Ric, scoring regional hits like "Every Dog Has Its Day" and "Tell It Like It Is"; his "My Dearest Darling" was also covered for a hit by Etta James. In...