What did you say?
Please keep checking this section for interesting and insightful quotes by and about Fess.
"He's The Bach of Rock!"
Allen Toussaint
"One of the off-handed founders of modern day popular music"
Rolling Stone Magazine (May 1972)
"Hearing Joe Turner for the first time;
seeing James Booker passed off as Huey Smith with a band of 'Shuck Clowns';
seeing Fess (Professor Longhair) in person"
Dr. John talks about favorite musical memories - Relix Magazine (May, '03)
"Fess, the high Priest - The King of it all"
Mac "Dr. John" Rebenack
"If I'm so great, I wonder why I don't have some terrific contract."
Professor Longhair, Interview (1976)
"He's the Satchel Paige of the piano."
Albert Goldman
"He's a seminal force, a guru, an original creator of the New Orleans piano style..
the teacher of great players like Fats Domino, Allen Toussaint, Mac Rebenack, James Booker, and Huey Smith. All acknowledge him as The Great Master."
Jerry Wexler
"Professor Longhair
put 'funk' into music; he's the father of the stuff."
Dr. John
"Longhair supposedly learned
to play on a junked piano with an octave or two of surviving keys, and
for the rest of his life he made that compass an infinitely expanding
universe. His Latin-tinged time was on a par with Monk's, James Brown's,
anyone's, and he was also a clown and a nut. If you've never heard him,
you don't know as much as you think you do. He'll kick your funnybone
and tickle your ass."
Robert Christgau
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