Give Me The Power

Luther Kent puts his heart and soul into music

BY JOHN WIRT

After 60 years on the bandstand, Luther Kent doesn’t often rehearse. Not even for his annual spot at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. When Kent, a.k.a. “Big” Luther Kent, and his 13-piece band, Trick Bag, play on Jazz Fest’s opening day, he’ll pick the songs he’s singing while he’s on stage performing. “Whatever feels right for the audience,” the blues, jazz and rhythm-and-blues singer said.

soul music he loves. Kent revels in the sonic force of trumpets, trombones and saxophones. “Give me the power,” he said.

But leading a nine-piece R&B horn band back in 1965, the midst of the guitar-wielding British invasion of America, made being a White rhythm-and-blues band challenging. “There were only a couple of [White] clubs that would book an R&B band—Coconut Grove in Baton Rouge and a place in New Orleans called Soul City,” Kent remembered. “So, the rest of the week, I worked at Black nightclubs and universities. I did that because of the kind of music that we did.”

At the height of the civil rights era that led to the federally mandated end of Louisiana’s state-sanctioned segregation, Kent’s White band wasn’t always quickly accepted by Black audiences. “It wasn’t cool with them at first,” he said. “They would look at us kind of funny—but the minute we started playing, they knew we were there for the right deal. That always overcomes everything.”

Kent has sung at nearly every Jazz Fest since 1979. His Blues Tent performance on Friday, April 28 will be his 43rd appearance at the festival. The nearly 75-year-old singer’s voice is strong despite decades of performing in smokefilled rooms. “As strong as it’s ever been,” he said. “I’ve been fortunate. I’ve never had any troubles with my voice.”

Since the 1960s, when Kent was a teenager performing as Duke Royal, he’s made a point of working with horns, instruments that are essential to the classic rhythm-and-blues and

Wardell Quezergue, the late New Orleans conductor and arranger, witnessed Kent win over a Black audience during a gig they performed together. “Luther stole their heart,” Quezergue said in 2009. “For a White artist doing blues, I don’t hear anyone any better than him. He puts his heart into things, and soul.”

A native of New Orleans, Kent was 13-years-old when his widowed mother moved her family to Baton Rouge. But by then he’d thoroughly absorbed his deeply musical hometown’s rhythm and soul. It helped that Kent’s older brother performed in a band that played New Orleans rhythm-and-blues favorites as well as the music of such national stars as Ray Charles. “I used to go to gigs with them when I was kid, because I loved the music so much,” Kent recalled. “I’d go sit on the side of the stage and listen to them play all night long.”

Kent’s love for music led to a lifetime of performing and inevitable ups and downs. His near misses at a bigger career included a doomed record deal during the early 1970s with Lou Adler’s Ode Records [as a member of Cold Grits]. Twenty years later, Kent was riding high when he sang the role of R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Co.’s popular but controversial cartoon character, Joe Camel. But Joe Camel vanished from Reynolds’ advertising portfolio in 1997 following years of criticism from anti-smoking groups. Another promising high-profile project Kent participated in, the 1990 TV musical-crime series, Cop Rock, was canceled after 13 episodes.

Kent’s career highlights include two 1970s stints with Blood, Sweat, & Tears and his 2009 album, The Bobby Bland Songbook. Quezergue—the masterful arranger for Professor Longhair’s “Big Chief,” Robert Parker’s “Barefootin’,” the Dixie Cups’ “Ike Iko,” Earl King’s “Trick Bag” and the concert film Deacon John’s Jump Blues—arranged the Bland tribute album. For Kent, Quezergue was an extraordinary collaborator and a special friend. “Wardell was a beautiful cat,” he said.

Featuring 12 classics from the Bland catalog, The Bobby Bland Songbook took Kent back to the music that compelled him to sing. He was 12-years-old when he first heard Bland’s recording of “Don’t Cry No More” playing on a corner bar jukebox on Washington Avenue. He’d never heard anything like it.

Bland, a rhythm and blues-influenced blues star, and soul singer James Brown became Kent’s bedrock inspirations. “The Live at the Apollo album by James Brown, the first time I heard that, it completely blew my mind,” Kent recalled. “That and Two Steps from the Blues by Bobby Bland. I used to wear those two albums out.”

At the beginning of his career, Kent wore his voice out imitating Brown. “That about killed me, but I loved doing it,” he said. “I did it for a good while, and I had a band that lent itself to that style of music. A nine-piece band with a four-piece horn section. People really liked it a lot, but I never did it because it was popular.” O

Saturday April 29 at 4:20 p.m. Economy Hall Stage