The First And Original
Louis Prima Page
Jumpin Jive
A Tribute To Louis Prima
The First And Original
Louis Prima Page
Born on December 7, 1910 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Louis Prima was a trumpeter, band leader, singer, composer, and sometime film star. The son of Italian immigrant parents Angelina and Anthony Prima. He was educated at Jesuit High School, and studied the violin for several years under Hemmersback, before switching to the trumpet.
At the tender age of 17, Louis was inspired by such jazz greats as Louis Armstrong and King Oliver. He aquired his first job as a singer/trumpeter in a New Orleans theater - his older brother, Leon, also played trumpet at a local night-spot.
In the early 30s Prima worked with Red Nichols, before forming his own seven-piece group called 'New Orleans Gang', with its signature tune, 'Way Down Yonder In New Orleans'. They recorded more than 70 titles in New York for various labels from 1934-39, some of which made the US Hit Parade.
Songs included:
Band members during this time included:
By this stage, Prima was also composing songs, and one of them, 'Sing, Sing, Sing', when developed by Benny Goodman, became a smash hit for the 'King Of Swing', and remains a Swing Era classic.
Through the years, Prima wrote and co-wrote many other songs, including 'Robin Hood', which was a success for Les Brown in 1945. Also in 1945, Prima had engagements at Frank Dailey's Terrace Room in Newark New Jersey. He also wrote the 1947 Jo Stafford hit, 'A Sunday Kind Of Love'.
Prima also wrote:
Fellow collaborators included:
After making an good impression in his feature film debut in the Bing Crosby movie musical Rhythm On The Range (1936), Prima continued to have relatively small, but telling roles in a number of other movies, notably Rose Of Washington Square (1939), in which he enhanced Alice Faye 's rendering of 'I'm Just Wild About Harry' with his ebullient and exciting trumpet accompaniment. By this time he had his own big band which he fronted with great showmanship and panache. 40's Prima hits included 'Angelina', 'Bell-Bottom Trousers' (vocal: Lily Ann Carol), and 'Civilization (Bongo, Bongo, Bongo)', an amusing novelty from the 1947 Broadway revue 'Angel In The Wings". In 1941 Prima and his orchestra had an engagment at the Trianon Ballroom in Seattle Washington, one of the songs performed there was 'Sing Sing Sing' and featured a 16 year old drummer named Jimmy Vincent, who went on to perform with Prima right on through the Vegas years.
In 1948, Prima began working with the poker-faced 16 year old singer Dorthy Keely Smith daughter of Fannie and Jesse Smith, she was born in Norfolk, VA. After having a hit in 1950 with their joint composition 'Oh, Babe!', they were married on July 13, 1953 and had two daughters,Toni Elizabeth and Luanne Frances. Keely was his fourth wife.
During the next decade they were recognized as one of the hottest nightclub acts in the USA, and became known as 'The Wildest Show In Las Vegas'. Prima's inspired clowning and zany vocals delivered in a fractured Italian dialect, coupled with Smith's cool image and classy singing, were augmented by tenor saxophonist Sam Butera and his group, the Witnesses. A typical performance was filmed at Lake Tahoe in 1957, and released under the title of The Wildest, and they reassembled in 1959 for the feature Hey Boy! Hey Girl! Prima and Smith were awarded Grammys in 1958 for their inimitable reading of the Harold Arlen - Johnny Mercer standard, 'That Old Black Magic'.
In 1958 Prima was briefly in the UK Top 30 with Carl Sigman and Peter de Rose's 'Buona Sera', and two years later made the US singles and albums charts with the instrumental 'Wonderland By Night'. Other Top 40 albums included 'Las Vegas-Prima Style' and Hey Boy!, Hey Girl! In 1961, while still at the height of their fame - and having recently signed a multi-million dollar contract with the Desert Inn, Las Vegas, the couple were divorced, he then married another girl singer Gia Maione, and continued to work in Vegas through 1967.
In 1967 Prima and Butera subsequently attempted to cash in on the then-popular dance fad by appearing in the movie 'Twist All Night', which sank without a trace in spite of items such as 'When The Saints Go Twistin' In'. Most memorable was Prima's contribution in 1967 to The Jungle Book , the Walt Disney Studio's first cartoon feature in four years, which went on to gross about $26 million. Prima provided the voice of the orang-utan King Louie, and sang the film's hit song, 'I Wanna Be Like You'. As a result of Phil Harris' and Prima's success with the Jungle Book movie, they cut two albums "The Jungle Book", on Disneyland records and "More Jungle Book". The combination of receipts from both albums led Prima to a gold record.
In the later years Prima mostly confined himself to performing with a small group at Casino's such as the Sands Hotel, Las Vegas. In the early 1970s Prima's act was no longer a crowd drawer as in the old days in Vegas, so he moved with Butera back to New Orleans, getting steady work for the tourist crowd.
In October 1975 underwent surgery for the removal of a brain tumor. He never regained consciouness from the operation. Disabled and incapable of communicating remained in a coma until in early July of 1978 he contracted pneumonia. Fed through a tube and given hoards of antibiotics, he was given his last rights. Prima a strong willed man hung on for another six weeks until he died from complications due to the brain stem tumor on August 24, 1978 in a New Orleans nursing home. He is buried in the Metairie Cemetery in
New Orleans, Louisiana along side his mother and father Anthony (died 1961)and Angelina(died 1965)Prima.
Click here to visit Prima's grave.
Prima Records
Click Here For More Album Covers
Louis Prima Keely Smith Photo Album
Louis,Keely and the Band
Prima Family Album
Pictures of Louis at home
"The Wildest" a video documentry of Louis
career now available on VHS and DVD. (See Video section at bottom of page).
Louis and Keeley, Dot DLP3210
Together, Dot DLP3263
Pretty Music Prima Style, Dot DLP3264
By Night, Dot DLP3352
Blue Moon, Dot DLP3385
Breaking It Up, Columbia CL-1206
The Wildest, Capitol T-755
Call of the Wildest, Capitol T-836
The Wildest Show at Tahoe, Capitol T-908
Las Vegas Prima Style, Capitol T-1010
Strictly Prima, Capitol T-1132
Hey Boy! Hey Girl, Capitol T-1160
The Wildest Comes Home, Capitol ST-1723
Blast Off! The Live New Sound of Louis Prima, Quad Records ST-0030
THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC - Louis Prima & Keely Smith [2:50]
With Sam Butera & The Witnesses
(Harold Arlen/Johnny Mercer)
Capitol single #F-4063 (1958)
Order Your Louis Prima CD's And Tapes Here
CD's
Video
Trivia
Louis refused to fly, so everywhere the
band went they would have to take a train or drive
Keely Smith
Sam Butera
Click Here to listen to Big Band & Swing music on our own JJAW Radio
Trivia
Louis and Keely were the first to ever
receive a Grammy Award in 1958
The song? "Old Black Magic"
Links
Copyright©PrimaFan Ent. 1999-2007
Eh,Paisano! Click Here To Order Your Own Louis
Prima T-Shirt
Jete' Webdesigns
Last Updated Sept.15, 07
|
This
Greatest Entertainers Ring site
|
|
