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ROCK AND ROLL HALL OF
FAMER LLOYD PRICE
CONFRONTS RACE AND MUSIC IN SUMDUMHONKY
The legendary New
Orleans singer/songwriter (“Lawdy Miss Clawdy,” “Personality,”
“Stagger Lee”) writes of his life, career and the
African-American experience in a frank, no-holds-barred memoir.
Street date: October 13, 2015.
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LOS ANGELES, Calif. —
We’ve all been told you can’t judge a book by its cover, but a
title is a different story. And sumdumhonky,
the title of Lloyd Price’s
memoir (published by Cool
Titles, set for
October 13, 2015 street
date), lets you know it will not be your garden-variety rock star
autobiography.
Of course, Lloyd
Price is a
verifiable rock star. A living legend, if we may be so bold. Born
in Kenner, Louisiana on
March 9, 1933, Lloyd showed musical promise from an early age,
playing trumpet and piano in school, and, by the time he was in
high school, playing around New
Orleans in a
jazz/R&B combo. He spent what little spare time he had in his
mother’s restaurant, the Fish N
Fry; it was there, Lloyd
says, that he picked up his love for food and business.
More importantly, it was
where he was discovered by Dave
Bartholomew, a
producer and talent scout for Specialty
Records.
Stopping into the restaurant to grab a bite, he overheard Lloyd
working on “Lawdy Miss Clawdy.” Knocked out by what he heard,
Bartholomew signed him, brought him to New Orleans, and put him
in the studio with a band that included Fats
Domino on
piano and Earl Palmer on
drums. “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” spent seven weeks on top of the
charts, making Lloyd one of the first teenagers to sell a million
records.
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Fifteen of his records
became top ten R&B hits; they remain just as fresh and
exciting today as when they were recorded. His songs have been
covered nearly 600 times by artists as diverse as the
Beatles, (plus
Paul McCartney
and John Lennon
on solo albums), Elvis Presley, Little
Richard, Fats Domino, Travis Tritt, Roy Orbison, Joe Cocker,
Wayne Newton, Tom Jones, Billy Joel, James Brown, Tina Turner,
Fleetwood Mac, Bono, Jimi Hendrix, Elvis Costello, Frank Sinatra,
Mickey Gilley, Neil Sedaka, Grateful Dead, Charlie Price, the
Isley Bros., Dr. John, Al Hirt, Perry Como, Pat Boone,
and Steve Lawrence.
Lloyd was inducted into the Rock
and Roll Hall of Fame in
1998 and the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame
in 2010. The city of Kenner honored him with Lloyd
Price Avenue, and
erected a statue of him in LaSalle
Park.
Lloyd’s music has been a
mainstay on TV: the #1 hit “Personality” has been featured in
campaigns for General Motors, Kraft Foods, American
Idol, the U.S.
Army, Fiat, Weight Watchers, Howard Johnson’s Hotels,
the PGA
and LPGA,
NFL Apparel,
and Pepsi Cola.
Lloyd made his debut as an actor on the first season of the hit HBO
series Treme.
Still a consistent concert draw, he produced and starred in 4 Kings
of Rhythm and Blues
alongside Jerry Butler, Gene Chandler,
and Ben E. King.
From 1999 into the 2000s, the show sold out houses across the
country, including the MGM
Grand in Las
Vegas and New York’s Legendary Apollo
Theater. It was
recorded for PBS
and remains one of their most popular programs.
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That would be enough for
most people, but in addition to his music career, Lloyd has been
a pioneering businessman. He started his own labels (including Double
L Records, which
released Wilson Pickett’s debut recordings), and was one of the
first black Americans to own and operate a nightclub in New York
City, Lloyd Price’s Turntable,
on 52nd Street and Broadway. He co-produced (with Don
King) the
famous Ali-Foreman “Rumble in the
Jungle,” the
accompanying concert and satellite broadcast; developed
middle-class housing the blighted South Bronx; manufactured
sports equipment (an outgrowth of his youthful interest in
athletics — he boxed as Kid
Price and
was a good enough bowler to rack up six perfect 300 games); and
built a thriving food company. All this while continuing to
record hits and play an average of 250 concerts a year.
His career gave Lloyd a
special insight during the tumultuous Civil Rights movement of
the 1950s and 60s. sumdumhonky
chronicles how, no matter how successful he became, race was
never far from the surface. Even as he was bridging the pop and
R&B charts with his music — and he doesn’t stint on stories
about his career, including the early days of New Orleans R&B
— he found his skin color was an issue.
In sharply detailed
prose, as energetic and stylish as his music, Lloyd writes of the
racist citizens of his hometown of Kenner,
Louisiana, the
bigoted police officers, salesmen and record industry executives
who figured they could take advantage of him simply because he
was black and from the South, and of his eye-opening trip to
Africa.
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“Times have changed
since I was born more than eighty years ago. Blacks can now drink
from the same water fountain as white people, eat at the same
restaurants, ride in the front on public transportation, get a
bank loan, hold jobs in management and we don’t get lynched quite
as often as we used to.”
As recent events have
shown, race is still a flashpoint in American life.“sumdumhonky
is a frank look at the issue, told with heart, style, and of
course, “personality.”
Lloyd
is available for phone interviews, and select in-person
interviews and appearances. Limited advance review copies of the
book are also available.
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