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HUEY SMITH AND THE CLOWNS

“DON’T YOU JUST KNOW IT”

(Huey “Piano” Smith)    

Ace 545   

No. 9    April 14, 1958

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For many years now, Huey Smith, renowned New Orleam piano man, has been content with working

his garden.  Now a Jehovah’s Witness and a strict Bible  reader, Huey has  long been  embittered the

bad deals, the mistakes, and the way he feels his best material has been stolen from him.

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Smith was born in the city’$ Garden District on January 26, 1934.  His uncle played the piano, and

Huey would imitate him.  “I used to play till the neighbors used to bang on the walls for me knock it

off,”  Huey  told Goldmint’s Almost Slim.  “When  l was seven or eight, I began  makin’ songs up like

‘Robertson Street Boogie.’  My father used to give me money to take lessons every week.  But I didn’t

go!  I kept the money, and learned from my sister, who took lessons from the lady next door.”

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When he was 15, Huey met Eddie “Guitar Slim” Jones.  “l had been  fooling around  with a friend  of

mine, Roosevelt Nettles, who play drums.  One night I was coming home from Cohen [High School]

and stopped over at Roooevelt’s and there was this guy there with guitar.  He was dressed in purple

and yellow pants, a lime green shirt and a straw hat!  Roosevelt said, ‘He sounds just like Gatemouth

Brown.’  It Was Guitar Slim.”  Smith  made a living  recording with Guitar  Slim ( “The Things That l

Used to Do”), Earl King (“Those Lonely Lonely Nights”), Little Rlehard (“Tutti Frutti”), Lloyd Price

and Smiley Lewis ( “I Hear You Knockin” ).  Ace Records released  the first 45  under Huey’s name­

“Little Liza Jane”–when the core idea for Smith’s earliest solo hit came.

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“I was always trying to pick up catchy lines and Chuck Berry had this line, ‘I got rockin’ pneumonia,

sittin’ down at a rhythm review; and ROY BROWN had some line about ‘young man rhythm.’  So l

started thinkin’ about oppo1ite lines like, ‘kissin’ a girl  that’s too tall.’  We  came up with  ‘Rocltin’

Pneumonia and the Boogie Woogie Flu’ (R&B:  #5, 1957) that night in the studio.

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BOBBY MARCHAN, who was working as a female impersonator when he met Huey-and continues

such-activities–sang lead on this New Orleans classic and joined Smith to form the Clowns.  The idea

was that Marchan would handle lead vocal$, and Smith would write the tunes, play piano, and arrange.

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The line up was liquid, but present during the band’a hey day were Marchan, James Booker, Curly

Moore (lead singer for most post-59 recordings), Roosevelt Nettles, ROBERT PARKER, and even

JESSIE HILL.

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“Don’ t You Just Know lt,” Huey’s next single, was a huge pop sueess.  Gerri Hall, a perennial Clown

and later one of Ray Charles’ Raelettes, told author John Broven in Rhythm & Blues that the tune’s

title came from an expression that Rudy Ray Moore, the Clowns’ driver was accustomed to saying.

The Clowns hit the road in support of the disk, leaving a number called “Sea Cruise” behind in the

can; in other words, it had been recorded and was awaiting the right time for release.

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“In my mind, [“Sea Cruise”] was the one that was gonna throw me over the hump,” Lewis recalled.

“Huey recalled.  “But Johnny [Vincent] and FRANKIE FORD’s manager, Joe Caronna, liked it also.

 So Johnny  came to me and  said,  ‘Let Frankie do it.’  I said, ‘No way!’  But  Johnny said there was

nothing I could do about it.  It was coming out on Frankie.”

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The track was issued under Frankie Ford’s name, with Frankie singing lead.  Huey was livid.  “I never

got my royalties from Johnny.  He kept sayin’, it’s comin’, it’s comin.’

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When his contract ran out, Huey was gone, and so were the chartings.  He continued recording for

Imperial,  Teem,  Spinett, Instant,  Constellation,  and White Cliffs.  Many times, his disks would

appear under other names like Shindig Smith, Snuffy Smith, the Hueys, the Pitter Patters, and the

Soul Shakers.

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Smith worked where he could, even returning to Johnny Vincent and the Ace label in the early ’60s.

 Once he had recovered from a serious drinking problem, he turned 10 religion, working as a janitor

in a drugstore and eventually turning to gardening.  Huey “Piano• Smith has vowed never to perform

again.