George, July 16th, 2014
I was born in New Orleans, raised there. At the age of 5, I started playing drums. I used to beat on boxes and tops until my mom got tired of that and my godfather bought me a big old steel drum. (The kind that you see in the confederate army.) I took lessons.. I think it was 50 cents a lesson, something like that. I had about 5 lessons and I figured out that I could read music without the teacher. I really didn’t need the teacher after about 4 to 5 lessons.
I turned professional at the age of 15 and played with the Dave Louis Combo. At the age of 27 I started touring with Lionel Hampton’s band and toured all over the United States. I got to play with Peggy Lee at the World’s Fair here in Seattle. The rest of it is history. Music became my life. It was easy for me to get a job because I was in demand really.
I had quite a few instances on stage.
- One time, I was playing- you know you’re playing on a 20 foot stage- and I was sitting back on the edge of the stage. I was playing a drum solo and I got up, stood up for the drums and when I went to sit back down, the stool had slipped and I fell off the stage backwards. On the way down I caught one of those iron rails and I pulled myself up and started playing again.
- There are these big stairways as you go up. I was talking to the base player, “It would be funny if one of you guys fell going up the stairs.” Well I fell going up and I fell coming back down.
- When I was playing at the parlor, here, my wedding band fell off while I was playing on stage and it was rolling on stage, rolling towards those pit lights, and I started running across the stage right after it. It was fun for the audience, everyone applauded when I got my ring.
I left here in 1970, went to California and I played for about 35 years. If you add it all up I think I was out of work for a year. I had like 2-3 weeks off or something like that. I never had to worry about work. I was always working. I was blessed for that.
I was blessed with the talent. I was good enough to work with a lot of people. I backed a lot of singers like Etta James, Jimi Witherspoon. I played with Johnny Guitar Watson. The list is long, I have a resume with all my stuff on it. I would say music has been very good to me. I’m kind of semi-retired… I am in pain every day. I won’t get an operation, I just stick with the pain but it is not getting any better.
-Is your pain related to the touring?-
The drumming, sitting on coke boxes, and telephone books before they really made a drum stool for you. See I was short; I had to get up high enough to play the drums. And wearing in style shoes, we wore the same shoes as the Beatles, which caused your feet get messed up. Mine did get messed up- I had to get an operation. I had two bone spurs in my little toe that I had to get taken care of. I think one of the worst pains is foot pain. They operated on that. I had to get a hip replacement.
I tell young drummers that you should take care of yourself. The only thing I really did take care of were my arms and I exercised my legs. I used to do a lot of running but that still didn’t stop me from getting a hip replacement