New Orleans Escorts: The Year Before The Flood: The Ponderosa Stomp
December 31, 2009
I hadn’t had this much fun in . . . well, maybe since Mardi Gras. Upstairs in front of the bowling lanes, I saw Classie Ballou, from Baton Rouge and now living in Waco, playing a Gibson SG just like mine. I’d never heard of him before, but I recognized the riff he played when he started doing “Just a Little Bit,” It was the guitar lick the Beatles used at the beginning of “Birthday.” Classie Ballou was the guy who came up with that lick, playing with Rosco Gordon on “Just a Little Bit.” Herbert Hardesty, best known as Fats Domino’s longtime sax man, was onstage with him.
And up came Rudy Ray Moore, better known as Dolemite, the dirty-talking comedian from party records and, later, blaxploitation films. He came onstage looking like a pimp from one of the lesser southern cities, resplendent in rhinestone-studded shades and ceremonially encrusted walking cane.
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