Fonzie Says "Honk"

Louis Live!

Here's my third and last Louis Prima post this month. It is an amazing live record recorded at the height of Louis' fame back in the late fifties. Louis and his partner/wife, Keeley Smith, had multi-million dollar contracts with both the Sahara and the Desert Inn at Las Vegas. They played there exclusively every night of the week. The shows were always sell outs and no two performances were ever the same. To get a little taste of this excitement to the rest of the world, Capitol Records recorded one of their shows at the Sahara and released it as "Las Vegas - Prima Style". The result is a party on a platter. It's obvious that this is only part of the live show and the cuts are noticable. And there are sections where the song sounds like they may have cut out a solo or two (common practice in LP days). However, this is still a must have for any fan of Louis Prima. This is the real "Wildest". Enjoy!

Las Vegas-Prima Style

Louis Prima Answers The Call!

Louis Prima is an American Icon. Of course, being part Italian I think it's manditory for me to think that. As a bold, talented, ambitious youngster, Prima rose from the rank-and-file of musicians in the training ground of New Orleans in 1934 and headed for the "Big Time" in the city of New York. After a few weeks the Louis Prima Band became a smash hit in the small-but-jumping club,"Famous Door" and before long, the entire 52nd Street, between Fifth Avenue and Broadway, was renamed "Swing Street." A whole new era of music began, with Louis coining such expressions as "swing" and other "hep" sayings like "solid jack," "crazy man," and many more. A few years passed and Louis hit the charts with "Angelina." It started the whole country talking about pizza, veal parmegiana, pasta fagiole, and antipasto. One smash came after another, like, "Josephina," "Please No Squeeza Da Banana," "Bacciagaloop, Makes Love on the Stoop" and "Felicia No Capicia." When Elvis Presley was asked where he got the wiggle, he replied, "From Louis Prima, of course." Louis down-sized the big band to a small group and added the sounds and talents of the great sax-man Sam Butera and vocalist, Keely Smith. He performed magic again by developing a shuffle beat, combined with a New Orleans southern rock sound, added the wailing sax and for comedic value, transformed the vocalist into the dead-pan partner that he could play off of. The string of hits that followed included "Just a Gigolo - I Ain't Got Nobody," "Buona Sera," "Black Magic," "Zooma, Zooma," "When You're Smilin'," and on and on. Louis Prima was not just Louis Prima - he was the "Big Daddy" of them all! One of his best albums (that include most of his fore mentioned hits) was 'The Call of The Wildest". What's even better than the album is the hilarious cover of Louis singing to a moose! I present it for you now. Enjoy!

Call of The Wildest

Weird Science Re-Up!

On June 23 I posted the soundtrack to the great 80s film, "Weird Science". After receiving numerous complaints about the file not opening, I tried to download and unzip it myself, only to find that it was true: the file was corrupt. As a result, I posted a comment saying that I was on tour and was unable to re-up it for a while. Due to some amazing circumstances, I was able to re-up the file and bring you the restored version. So, here for you now is the soundtrack to "Weird Science"! (I've also gone back to the original post and changed it there too!) enjoy!

Weird Science OST