Snooks Eaglin

Snooks Ealgin - Broadcast April 2009

It’s been a bad couple of months for the health of the older blues greats. In Feb the world lost NO guitarist Snooks Eaglin, March saw the departure of Piedmont style guitarist John Cephas and NO pianist Eddie Bo, together with a number of lesser known names.

We will talk about Snooks Eaglin today. Snooks who died on Feb 18 at 73, was a star in his home town for more than 50 years. He played and recorded with fellow locals Ellis Marsalis, James Booker, the pianist and producer Allen Toussaint, Professor Longhair, the Wild Magnolias and a host of others.

He was regarded, not only for his gritty, Ray Charles-inspired vocal delivery and wholly imaginative approach to the guitar, but for the seemingly infinite storehouse of oldies that he's liable to pull out on-stage at any second — often confounding his bemused band in the process!

Kick off with Snooks playing a NO classic from 1994

1. I Went To The Mardi Gras – 1994 – Blues Collection – Tk 1 – 4.53, fade at 2.30

Born Fird Eaglin, Jr in either January 1936, or perhaps 1937, Eaglin lost his sight not long after his first birthday after being stricken with glaucoma, and spent several years in hospital with other ailments. Around the age of five Eaglin was given a guitar by his father, which he taught himself to play by listening to and playing with the radio. Being a mischievous young boy, he was given the nickname "Snooks" after a radio character named Baby Snooks.

In 1947, at the age of 11, Eaglin won a talent contest organized by a local radio station. Three years later, he dropped out of the Louisiana School for the Blind in Baton Rouge to become a professional musician.

In 1952, the 16 yo Eaglin joined a band calledthe Flamingoes, a local 7-piece outfit led by a then 14 yo Allen Toussaint. The Flamingoes didn't have a bass player, and according to Eaglin, he played both the guitar and the bass parts at the same time on his guitar. He stayed with The Flamingoes for several years, until their dissolution in the mid-50s.

Eaglin once told a story about his time with the Flamingos – he once was given the job of driving them all home after a Saturday night gig. The musicians were all so drunk that they decided their blind guitarist was the most qualified driver.

After his spell with the Flamingos he worked under the billing "Lil' Ray Charles.”

His first recording was in 1953, as a session guitarist, but the first recordings under his own name came when Harry Oster, a folklorist from Louisiana State University, found him playing in the streets of New Orleans. Oster was an amateur music researcher and a junior English faculty member at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. By 1959, he had already published a long list of articles on Cajun folk music, religious folksongs of the South, spirituals, and prison blues. He was instrumental in getting Robert Pete Williams released from jail. Oster made recordings of Eaglin over seven sessions between 1958 and 1960 which later became records on various labels including Folkways, and Prestige/Bluesville.

Two tracks from his very early recordings for Harry Oster in March 1958

2. Rock Island Line – 1958 – NO Street Singer – Tk 17 – 2.03

3. One Scotch One Burbon– 1958 – NO Street Singer – Tk 19 – 2.42

All these 1958 recordings presented Eaglin as a solo acoustic folk-blues artist with an extremely eclectic repertoire and dazzling fingerpicking. He could play blues, country music, gospel songs, hits from the recent R&B charts, jazz standards and even flamenco guitar styles, all in rich, orchestral like arrangements for six- or 12-string guitar and sung in his husky voice.

4. Bottle Up and Go – 1958 – Country Boy – Tk 4 – 2.51

Track recorded in 1961, again for Harry Oster – you can hear the improvement in style and technique. Bluesway album, billed as Blind Snooks Eaglin.

5. I’m a Country Boy – 1961 – That’s All Right Tk 3 – 2.24

Ray Charles number from the same year

6. I Got a Woman – 1961 – That’s All Right Tk 4 – 3.07

He recorded for Imperial from 1960 through to 1964 and although his output was well received locally, but didn’t get him national exposure. For the remainder of the 1960s, he didn’t make any recordings.

He played for a few years in the house band at the Playboy club, but by the late 1960s, he had practically retired. When the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage festival began in 1970, however, he was drawn back into playing, and a couple of LPs for the Swedish Sonet label in 1971 and 1977 refreshed his reputation in the larger world.

First album was produced by Quint Davis.

Bill Haley cover

7. Shake Rattle and Roll – 1971 – Sonet 1971 – Tk 14 – 1.45

Soul number from the same album.

8. Good News – 1971 – Sonet 1971 – Tk 5 – 2.27

The 1977 Sonet album was portrayed as one where Eaglin could play what he wanted rather than being forced to adopt styles he didn’t really like. Lively track featuring Ellis Marsalis on piano.

9. Down Yonder – 1977 – Sonet 1977 – Tk 1 – 2.45

Apart from his own work, he joined recording sessions with Professor Longhair on Longhair’s ‘rediscovery’ album recorded in late 1971 and early ‘72 (Mardi Gras in Baton Rouge) and also played some funky guitars on The Wild Magnolias' first album recorded in 1973. Tracks from both these albums featuring Eaglins work on the guitar.

10. Sick and Tried – June 1972 - Mardi Gras in Baton Rouge – Tk 11 – 3.14

11. Coconut Milk – 1973 – I’m Back at Carnival Time – Tk 9 – 3.10

Snooks got a recording contract with Black Top Records in the 1980s which led to the most consistent years of his recording career. Between 1987 and 1999, he recorded 4 studio albums and a live album, and appeared as a guest on a number of recordings by other Black Top artists.

12. It’s Your Thing – 1986 – Blues Collection – Tk 7 – 2.44

Live track recorded at NO club Tipitina’s in May 1989

13. Certainly Y’All – May 1989 – Blues Collection – Tk 15 – 2.51

Soul track from a 1995 Black Top album called Soul’s Edge

14. Nine Pound Steel – 1995 – Louisiana Gumbo – Tk 12 – 5.33, fade at 2.50

In 2002 he released The Way It Is. A year later P-Vine put out Soul Train from Nawlins, an album drawn from a live set Eaglin did at 1995's Park Tower Blues Festival.

"The reason I cover so much ground," he said in a 1989 interview, "is that when you play music, you have to keep moving. If you don't, you're like the amateur musicians who play the same thing every night, which is a drag. That's not the point of music."

For many years, Eaglin lived in the suburbs of New Orleans in St. Rose with his wife Dorothea whom he met at a Mardi Gras engagement in 1958.

Reclusive and at times eccentric, he did not play many live shows. However, he regularly performed at Rock n' Bowl in New Orleans, and also at the New Orleans Jazz Fest. and was one of the annual event's major draws. "More celebrities came to see Snooks than anyone," says John Blancher, manager of the venue Mid-City Lanes Rock n'Bowl. "His reputation was as big as anyone's in New Orleans. And he wouldn't travel, so if you wanted to see Snooks you had to come to Rock n'Bowl."

In 2008, Eaglin was diagnosed with prostate cancer, and he made his last public appearance, at the Mid-City Lanes, in July.

He was scheduled to make a come back appearance at the New Orleans Jazz Fest later this month, but died of heart attack in New Orleans on February 18.

"His death," said Quint Davis, producer of that festival, "is like losing a Professor Longhair, a Johnny Adams or a Gatemouth Brown. He's one of those giants of New Orleans music."

Finish up with an instrumental from his 1977 Sonet album, with Eaglin giving the fuzz tone a good workout

15. San Hose – 1977 – Sonet 1977 – Tk 12 – 3.38