James Booker And His Organ - Madison flac album

James Carroll Booker III (December 17, 1939 – November 8, 1983) was a New Orleans rhythm and blues keyboardist born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. Booker's unique style combined rhythm and blues with jazz standards. Musician Dr. John described Booker as "the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced. Flamboyant in personality, he was known as "the Black Liberace".

James Booker And His Organ ‎– Madison. Label: Disques Pop ‎– MPO 3089, Disques Pop ‎– MPO.

Booker received a saxophone as a gift from his mother, but he was more interested in the keyboard. He played the organ in his father's churches. After returning to New Orleans in his early adolescence, Booker attended the Xavier Academy Preparatory School. He learned some elements of his keyboard style from Tuts Washington and Edward Frank. Booker was highly skilled in classical music and played music by Bach and Chopin, among other composers. He also mastered and memorized solos by Erroll Garner and Liberace. His performances combined elements of stride, blues, gospel and Latin piano.

James Booker was an unheralded genius of American music, a New Orleans pianist whose dizzying technique and mastery of the keyboard was matched only by his imagination and his soulfulness. His short and often flamboyant life was also marked by struggle and lost opportunity

James Carroll Booker III (December 17, 1939 – November 8, 1983) was a New Orleans rhythm and blues pianist, organ player and singer, born in New Orleans, Louisiana, United States. John described Booker as the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced. Booker was the son and grandson of Baptist ministers, both of whom played the piano. He spent most of his childhood on the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where his father pastored a church.

One of the great blues albums of the early '80s, Classified captures the legendary New Orleans pianist James Booker not long before his premature death at the age of 43 on November 8, 1983. Recorded in a series of sometimes problematic sessions in 1982 - producer Scott Billington details them in his terrific liner notes on the 2013 reissue of the record, which is remixed and expanded - Classified appeared just a few months before Booker's death, so it's hard not to read it as something of a final statement.

James Booker and his Organ: Madison - Gonzo - Cool Turkey - Tubby - Part 1 - Tubby - Part 2. EP POP MPO. 89 (Fr 1962). James Booker: Spiders On The Keys Live At The Maple Leaf Bar - Papa Was A Rascal - Sunny Side Of The Street - So Swell When You're Well - A Taste Of Honey - He's Got The Whole World In His Hands - Gonzo's Blue Dream - Eleanor Rigby - Malaguena - Piano Salad - Little Coquette - Besame Mucho - Tico Tico - Over The Rainbow rec.

Booker was like no one else, and as Allen Toussaint says about him in the documentary Bayou Maharajah: The Tragic Genius of James Booker, produced and directed by Lily Keber, "I know the word genius is thrown around loosely, but Booker, I considered Booker a genius when I met him, and to this day, a true genius. It's always impressive when a genius calls another a genius, but that is what happens throughout the film. the best black, gay, one-eyed, junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced. Keber's film allows Booker and the people who knew him to tell his story. She wisely stays out of the way; there was no need to interfere, as Booker and others unfold the story of what she rightfully calls his "tragic genius.