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Davell Crawford: Born with the Funk |
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Friday, 13 January 2006 20:22 |
Davell Crawford
Born With The Funk
By John Sinclair
Pianist, organist, composer, singer and all-around musical sensation Davell Crawford is one of the true wonders of the contemporary Crescent City music scene. The grandson of New Orleans R&B legend James Sugarboy Crawford, Davell first emerged a decade ago as a teen-aged piano terror and then began to unfold the full scope of his incredible talent before an awe-struck public.
Now, at the tender age of 24, Davell Crawford stands revealed in all his musical glory: as a gospel music organizer who's conducted choirs in Catholic, Baptist, and Spiritualist churches and led gospel ensembles of his own; a jazz pianist and balladeer under the spell of Sarah Vaughan and Ray Charles; a funky R&B keyboard man and vocalist who incorporates the entire Crescent City piano tradition into his pianistic attack; a master manipulator of the Hammond B-3 and soulful jazz organist; and most amazing a high-powered pop music diva inspired by Patti LaBelle and Dionne Warwicke to drive audiences crazy in nightclubs and major concert venues all over the world.
The young Mr. Crawford has issued five wildly various CDs under his own name. His premiere release, Just Friends (Her Records, 1994), was basically a demo tape issued without authorization and quickly withdrawn from circulation. His official first album, Let Them Talk (Rounder, 1995), followed with a potent mixture of Sugarboy Crawford compositions, gospel songs (including a duet with his grandfather on Walk Around Heaven ), R&B chestnuts ( Something You Got, Lovey Dovey ), and spirited piano features ( Gumbo Piano, Keep It Rollin ! )
An odd pair of Rounder releases on its Bullseye Blues & Jazz imprint followed: The B-3 and Me (1997), an atmospheric organ trio showcase featuring the imaginative New Orleans saxophonist Clarence Johnson III and master drummer Shannon Powell, and Love Like Yours and Mine (1999), a program of romantic ballads and jazz that explores Crawford's fascination with interpreting jazz and pop standards in the context of a piano trio.
Davell's considerable skills as a composer and energetic performer of instant R&B classics long known to the many fans of his live shows were finally unveiled on disk in a 1999 release on the locally-based Mardi Gras label titled Born With the Funk. Backed by a brace of top-notch rhythm sections, Davell introduces such gems of modern-day New Orleans rhythm & blues as The Mardi Gras Song, Going Back Home To New Orleans, Please Forgive Me, Sad Song, Good Night My Love and Born With The Funk.
A fiercely iconoclastic young man who is determined to follow his own muse wherever she may lead him, commercial considerations be damned, Davell Crawford is constantly expanding his artistic horizons by emerging himself in musical settings of every sort. He is regularly seen around New Orleans sitting in with gospel ensembles, traditional jazz and brass bands, blues outfits, modern jazz groups, the Wild Magnolias, and in wild piano duets with the likes of Eddie Bo and Henry Butler.
While Davell would seem to be a natural heir to the New Orleans R&B tradition, our interview revealed much to my surprise that his immersion in the funk was entirely self-willed and came pretty late in the game. As we talked over coffee at the Rue de la Course on Decatur Street earlier this year, Davell described a musical oddysey that started at age 7 on the streets of the French Quarter, took the young man through an amazing series of twists and turns, and promises to continue far into the future with equally stunning results.
JS: Can I take you way back? How did you start out playing music?
DC: It was sorta grown into me. We would go to the Cafe DuMonde every weekend, just about, my grandmother and her friend, and there was a guy there with a telescope. And he would wheel around this piano, and he had this dog with him the dog was old as Jesus. And he'd wheel around this piano, and I would ask this guy every week, could I play the piano? And he'd say, no! No, you can't play the piano.
So one weekend I'd do this every weekend, I'd ask him so one weekend I asked him could I play. He said no, you can't play. So I just jumped on the piano when he had got a customer, on his little telescope, I just jumped on the piano. I was seven. And I could play. And that made people stop, and they were looking at me, and then of course that helped his little telescope business out they wanted to see Jupiter or whatever the hell he was lookin' at and he looked at me and he gave me the thumbs up. And that's all I needed. I made seven dollars and 39 cents in tips.
So that's how I would go there to play. I wasn't taking formal lessons until 8. I wasn't playin' at home because I didn't have a piano at home. At, like, 3, I had a little keyboard, and that was about it. But up until I was 7, I always knew I could play I could hear it.
I would go to church and sit in the back, and the organist, she would play the organ, and I would watch this hand playin', and her left hand, and I would watch her feet, because the organ was so up high. I would see her feet movin', and I would know when she hit the low C with her foot her foot would go toward the left. When it would be a higher note, her foot would go toward the right. And I used to sit in the pews, and my right foot I would be, you know, doin' that. Wherever it would land, I pretended I had pedals down there.
The first time I got on the organ was at Werlein's. I musta been maybe around 9, the first time I played the organ, and I just jumped on a big cathedral organ at Werlein's, and I could play it. I was fascinated by the organ. The piano never fascinated me when I was younger, because I knew I could play that. It was just something that I knew I could do.
I went to Sugarboy was Baptist, so I would go to church by him, at Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church. He sang in the choir. He did not play the piano, he did not speak of music, he didn't talk music or anything, he just sang in the choir. I didn't even see him in the choir, because his mother was head of the Usher Board, and they would keep the little babies in the back. So, I don't even have any memories of him I couldn't see him even bein' up there. You know?
And his ex-wife, which is my grandmother who I lived with, was the woman of the 70s or whatever the decade was, baby, she was the woman of that. So when she raised me during the 70s, baby, she was listening to Dionne Warwick, Smokey Robinson, and people like that, and that's who I grew up listening to that music. I had no New Orleans culture inbred in me.
Her family is from Lafayette, and on weekends we would go back to Lafayette. So, of course, I knew zydeco I grew up listening to zydeco all the time. On Sunday mornings, when we would get ready to go to church, the zydeco would play first, and then they would play gospel. And then, about the time church was over, we'd go to mass, and after mass we'd come back home and zydeco'd be back on the radio.
JS: So you'd go to both churches?
DC: Yeah, I'd go to both churches. And the Catholic Church in Lafayette, they were strict Catholics, but they sang a few of those hymns that my grandfather once sang, so musically the church wasn't strict Catholic. They had a nice choir, they sang in wonderful harmony. They have albums Immaculate Heart of Mary of Lafayette, they have nice albums.
So that was the only musical upbringing that I had, besides we'd listen to the zydeco there, and my grandmother played zydeco, and besides me listening to whatever she had on in the beauty shop at the time, which was pop music. It was never ever New Orleans music. My grandmother never listened to New Orleans music at all. She was married to Sugarboy umpteen years before I was even thought about bein' born, you know, and they got a divorce I think my mama was 9 years old when they got a divorce, and I was born when my mama was 16, 17. I had no clue of my grandmother's life before that. No clue.
JS: Your grandmother was Catholic?
DC: Yeah, yeah. Her family was basically I was with them every day, you know, my sisters and my cousins. All of my cousins, we went to school and we were raised like brothers because we were all single children we didn't have any sisters or brothers. So we went to the same school, we came to the [beauty] shop every day to do our homework, and then maybe I would sleep by my cousin's house, or they'd sleep by my house.
So I never really had no New Orleans training. And how I learned how to play songs at that time my natural music ability was impeccable, when I was young, before I studied it. It was impeccable. Whatever I heard, if I had to play it, I could play it. I was about 13 or 14 before my grandfather's music started to sorta unfold, or just not even his music, matter of fact, not even his music, just what they played on WWOZ. Perhaps somebody would play it in the car, or I would hear the blues or something, but I didn't know what I was listening to.
I was infatuated when I was younger by Ray Charles, but musically, as far as a piano player, it was something that didn't faze me, because I could play. I just was fascinated by his wigglin', and his personality, you know. If I saw Ray Charles on television, oh god, I just fell to the floor, because I useta like to see him wiggle and that was it. He played piano? So what? I played piano. You know, whatever. I liked his voice when I was young.
I was born in '75. In '77, or '76, he had an album called True To Life, which is my favorite Ray Charles album, and I would hear the string parts, he had a little country & western on there, he had this tune called "Game Number 9," and I heard that wah-wah thing. I remember the whole album. That album and a Dionne Warwick album called "Dionne," with "I Know I'll Never Love This Way Again" on there, and "Deja Vu," and just some wonderful tunes I couldn't get in the car and ride to Lafayette without my grandmother havin' the tapes. And I was 3 years old then, and I had to have those tapes. She'd put those tapes on, and I'd sing the whole way. She'd say, aren't you tired of listenin' to that? I'd sing the whole way.
So that was the first musical, I guess, learning stage, or appreciating stage, that I had. The New Orleans stuff, Professor Longhair and the blues, you know, that came about because it was . . . forced. My band, we were touring, you know, and [bassist] Charles Moore said I'll never forget do you know "Tutti Frutti"? I said, well, I guess I've heard it, yeah. They he said, this is how it goes, and he got on the bass. "Tutti Frutti," you know, on the bass. And I got it then. The next night, I did "Tutti Frutti."
Once I realized that that worked with the audience, and then after "Tutti Frutti" I had heard "Great Balls of Fire," and I said, I need the words to that. My grandfather's tunes, you know, they would I had heard 'em subconsciously, and they would pop into my brain. Fats Domino tunes something as simple as "Blueberry Hill," I could not play the bridge up until, what, maybe a year ago real simple, but I couldn't play it. I had no concept of what the hell was going on with the tune.
You see, that whole rhythm & blues era was over by the time I was born, number one, and then number two, I often wished that I was around when the Treme you know, like [trumpeter] little James [Andrews], who I love to death, and Trombone Shorty, who I love to death too these guys, they really have the real deal. I'm still fakin' it. I can play it, but
JS: You weren't exposed to the brass band parades and that kinda stuff?
DC: I was not even I was exposed to the parades up on St. Charles Street. We'd go on Mardi Gras, up on St. Charles. Indians you know, I'm friends with the [Wild] Magnolias and Bo [Dollis] and all them people, but that just came about three years ago or something like that. I would go to Donna's [Bar & Grill] here, and they would call me "white boy" the brass bands would, they would call me "white boy," because
JS: You didn't know the tunes?
DC: No, no, no, no, no. I knew the tunes. It's not that I knew 'em, but I could sit there and play 'em. Because to me, I put everything in a church concept it's nothin' but church to me. And that's all I was sittin' down there playin', but I had never been to a jazz my first jazz funeral was, was . . . [pianist] Edward Frank. That was my first jazz funeral, which was, what, a year and a half ago? Two years ago? Three years ago? And I went, and I walked, you know, and I had never experienced anything like this in my entire life. And I went to [JazzFest producer] Charlie Bering's funeral, you know, I played at Charlie Bering's, and one other, I can't remember who it was. But that's it I've only been to three.
I moved to Europe for a whole year I stayed in Paris, that was '96. I played three concerts and stayed the whole year. I cancelled my tour, and I did three shows. That year passed, and the same thing happened when '97 came by. I stayed in Paris, and then I moved down south to Cherbourg. I wanted a connection with the place, because the Lafayette part of me yearned very much for that, and I wanted to know about France, I wanted to know about the people, I wanted to know about the language that my family spoke and still speaks in Lafayette. So I went there, to sorta like feel it out.
Then I came back here, and I prayed, and asked God to give me some sort of longing to wanna be here in New Orleans, because I was fed up with the place. I used to hear people say all these wonderful things about New Orleans, you know, and I used to ask questions, like I don't see what you're talking about. They're going crazy over Professor Longhair, and James Booker, but I just did not get it. I could sit there and play it, but it just didn't it wasn't like that for me.
So over the last three or four years, which I'm just starting to talk about now why I have not played any real gigs, why I just sorta walk in on everybody's gigs and get on the piano and walk out. I'm just like a damn tourist. And I would be forcin' myself: Davell, you know, see what they see. Enjoy red beans. See what they see. Enjoy beignets, and the Cafe DuMonde. And boom it happened, to where It started to all make sense: the James Booker, Professor Longhair, all of a sudden started to make sense just everything. The gospel here in New Orleans especially, the groups that we have, started to make sense. I became aware of people like Pud Brown, I became aware of Dr. Michael White, I became aware of these people who are keeping this kind of music alive around here.
And I didn't even have to research it or study it, but I just said, okay God, open my eyes, let me see it, understand it, and it happened all of a sudden. The New Orleans sound not only rhythm & blues, but the blues from New Orleans. A lot of people say New Orleans is the home of rhythm & blues, and New Orleans gospel, and New Orleans jazz, but it's actually just pure D blues, which is a whole nother thing, man, from here, that I found it just shocked the hell out of me.
So it took these three years well, it's four years now, since we're at the beginning of '99 it took four years for me to work on myself as an individual, change personality-wise, change musically, grow musically, and grow with the love and fascination for this city and the culture and the music.
JS: You seem pretty comfortable with it now, but you always used to seem to be very uncomfortable with your surroundings.
DC: Yeah, I was sorta like that uncomfortable with a lot of situations. Now I'm much more comfortable. Musically I'm much more comfortable, too. I always knew what was right for me to do, but I could really never do it when I was younger because I surrounded so many people around me, to whereas people couldn't really get to me, you know? Touring did that to me, and I was touring heavily, heavily, heavily, heavily. Man, I was a mean son-of-a-bitch. And it made me touring a person that I knew I was not. Arrogant. And I wanted to change, I wanted to mend my ties with people, be nice like I am on most other occasions. I wanted to be that way 24-7, because I'm a person filled with joy.
So three years ago, I woke up one morning and said that I would not tour any more until I got ready. And I don't care how much money I was makin' I had, like, a trip out of here that goes for three or four weeks and I would make $80,000 myself, and I called and cancelled it. I was living in the warehouse district, layin' in my bed, listenin' to some birds and everything, with my shutters open on the side door, and I'm sayin', you son-of-a-bitch, you do not like yourself and, you know, you need to change.
And I prayed, and asked God to take this away from me. I'm a spiritual person, but I was never the kind of person to go to church every Sunday. But I'm very spiritual, and very attuned to God. And slowly but surely, that happened. It was my own personal therapy, and I've just started talkin' about it, like I say, in the last few months I made myself, wherever I go, I made myself hug everybody everywhere I went. I said, that's gonna be my therapy, I'm gonna greet everybody with a hug. Everybody. And, if you notice, for three years I've been a huggin' little son-of-a-bitch. Everywhere I go, I hug everybody that's my greeting. I don't shake nobody's hands.
And that opened me up to receivin' people for whom and what they are receivin' the city for its beauty, receivin' the Treme for its beauty, and not thinkin' that everybody in Treme are poor people, and not thinkin' that, because you're this, you're that just receivin' people and receivin' the music and not thinkin' that there was something inferior or wrong with playin' the blues.
As we can see, once you find yourself, you can take in anything you want. And it's better for you. It's better for you to approach every lesson, every music, every note, every word, every person in life, as a lesson. Approach the blues as a lesson. Cause if you're a true musician, or at least if you wanna call yourself a musician, you might want to be placed into every sort of musical circumstance and situation that you possibly can be placed in. If you don't wanna stay there, that's fine, but at least get the experience once or twice.
JS: Where did you go to school?
DC: Kennedy [High School]. I went to Bienville elementary school when I was younger my first school. I stayed there from kindergarden to, like, third grade, and I got skipped in one of those grades, I don't remember what. I left there and I went to Holy Rosary, on Esplanade, then I went to Our Lady Star of the Sea, which was down on St. Roch. Then I left and I went to school in Lafayette, at Immaculate Heart of Mary. Out there, I was playin' at the Baptist church, I was goin' to school, I was choir director at Holy Rosary High School, I was playin' for a non-denominational church, Tabernacle of Faith they would dance a while up in there. Then I was playin' for, every now and then for Queen of Peace, and Immaculate Heart, so I was playin' for a lot of different denominations when I was in Lafayette. And I had my own personal gospel group at that time, so that was nice. I also played with [the late bluesman] Dalton Reed for a while.
I moved back here, and I went to Kennedy, when I came back, because I wanted to go to public high school. I was tired of going to Catholic school I wanted to be free, and I knew if I was going to travel and tour I could not go to Catholic school. They wouldn't tolerate that. So I went to Kennedy, and out of Kennedy I went to NOCCA [New Orleans Center for Creative Arts]. And at that time, I was under a lot of pressure more than the average student, or more than the average person my age because I was playin' at Snug [Harbor], doin' jazz and startin' to experiment with Marvin Gaye songs, Sarah Vaughan, and Roberta Flack songs, and then I was doing the blues and rock & roll and stuff at Tip's, and then on Sundays I was doin' Baptist songs in the Baptist church, and I was goin' to Antioch Spiritualist Church in the 9th Ward and doin' dance, you know, the Holy Ghost music there, with tambourines and all that, and then I was goin' to Our Lady Star of the Sea and sittin' up there playin' a cathedral organ, or St. Luke's Episcopal Church and playin' a cathedral organ.
So NOCCA, at that time, by me doin' all of that sorta stuff, several teachers and several people had a problem with me doing that. And one teacher one out of all the teachers, took me under his wing, which was Dr. Braud, Bert Braud, who was head of the music department. He took me under his wing and said, man, you need to be as versatile as possible. Check this out. Check that out. Check this out. Now, he's head of the music department, and in my eyes he was a genius.
JS: How did you start traveling so early in life, going to Brazil and Europe and all that, at such a young age? Weren't you 16, 17 years old when you started out?
DC: It was just sorta like giggin' it just happened. It was fast. One day I'm playin' on the corner there, the next day I'm playin' at Tipitina's. So I never had that middle thing, you know. After Tip's, the next month I was playin' at Snug [Harbor]. Period. So, that was that. And House of Blues opened, I was there during the opening week. So that never really happened out of New Orleans, playin' the little gigs. It was just always there. I would do a show and a promoter would ask me to come.
In Europe, you know, over there I was very comfortable having exactly what I needed to make it, not a gig , but a show, a serious show. Offerin' showmanship, to my costumes, to background singers and things like that, I could afford to do that. Because, at that time, I was young from here, but guess what? I wasn't no fool when it come to money. So I'd say, baby I was 15 or 16, but I'd tell people, I'm gonna get that someday. They ain't got the money, just wait, I'll get there.
So I would do shows there that were completely unlike what they imagined was comin' from New Orleans, and after me experiencin' Patti LaBelle's show, or me experiencin', back in the day, a Dionne Warwick show this is what I hadn't done: I've never seen Professor Longhair I've never seen him. I've seen Patti LaBelle many times, okay? And so this is what I brought to them, and still bring. That's my only upbringing when it comes to a live performance. And as you well know, Patti and them other people I've mentioned, you know what they can do.
So that's how that happened. I would go there with the notion to kick ass, and it just fell in line. I'm known very well in some places, and in some places you can call my name and they'll say, Davell who? And other places, when I'm in the city, baby, they're there waitin'. Other cities, I go in humbly and after I do what I have to do, I can't walk the streets, you know, period.
And to whom I'm gonna say this to whom much is given, much is required. [The late gospel singer] Raymond [Myles] told me that. Me and Raymond used to talk all the time, and when I felt just a little I was doin' the wrong thing by not tourin' and just hangin' around New Orleans, every now and then I'd feel as though I'm doin' the wrong thing, I'd feel down, and Raymond would say, well, baby, let me tell you: to whom much is given, much is required.
But here, in the meantime, I'm havin' a fuckin' ball, man. I went to Vaughn's, unadvertised, and did a Thursday night over there had the Hammond B-3. We played a whole gig, and I was on B-3, Shannon Powell was on drums, Steve Masakowski on guitar, and Ralph Johnson on tenor. We didn't use no bass player. Me and Mr. Masakowski I used to call him Mr. me and Steve, we'd never played together a day in our lives. Never. And I wanted to do it because it opened I'm not gonna say "their," but all of our eyes to each other. To each other. And I wanted that to happen, especially.
So, that happened. And we swung for a whole night, and, man, havin' a Hammond B-3 up in that place Shannon promised he would have the organ back the next morning, and it ended up stayin' there for two months. You know? And I had to end up cussin' him out, tellin' him that I'll never speak to him again, but we cool. The next week we're talkin' again. You know. That's New Orleans. That's New Orleans.
New Orleans
November 2, 1999
(c) 1999. 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.
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