Can’t remember if I’ve ever run this wonderful Louis Prima chestnut here before, but if not, it’s high time I made amends for that nearly-unforgivable Yuletide lapse.
Couldn’t find a vid of that tune with the incomparable Keely Smith, alas. Bound to be footage of a live Prima performance of it out there someplace—probably rotting away in a dusty cardboard box in somebody’s closet, attic, or garage—that includes Louis’s winsome wife, so maybe next Christmas it’ll turn up. Meanwhile, as we wait for that frabjous day to arrive at last, enjoy another jolt of the magical Prima elixir.
I absolutely love the note-perfect combination of Louie clowning, showboating, and generally making an ass of himself with the somber-faced Keely pretending to be disinterested, bored stiff, even downright annoyed by her ol’ man’s antics. Best of all, hard as Keely tries to keep her mask of cool detachment firmly in place, now and again the ludicrous onstage carnival before, beside, and behind her simply overwhelms her disdainful facade: she loses her self-control and above-it-all poise and breaks down into giggle-fits, sometimes into helpless laughter.
It’s all in good fun, an obvious truth placed well beyond dispute by everyone in attendance. Just a quick look at the vid tells the story: singers, backing musicians, house technicians, and audience members alike, every face has an honest, happy grin plastered all over it.
Man alive, but what a fantastic show Louis Prima, his understatedly-beautiful, alluring wife Keely Smith, and Prima’s minimalist combo put on back in the day. Louie’s longtime tenor saxomophonist, the legendary Sam Butera, was one of the very best sax-men ever to put lips to mouthpiece, take a deep breath, and just wail. Watch this one, I triple-dog dare you to disagree.
See what I mean? You’ll all recognize that number, I imagine, if only in its David Lee Roth cover-version guise. I’m just about certain I HAVE posted that vid here before, but it’s so friggin’ good it merits an encore, and plenty of ‘em too. Biographical info on sax-master Sam Butera, including a Cliff Notes-style summarization of how the blessed, incredibly fruitful musical union of the Primas and Butera came to pass.
SPOILER ALERT! Said union boils down to blind luck; happenstance; felicitous timing; and a nudge in the right direction from the notoriously fickle hand of Lady Fate. In other words, just one of those things—another of the unforeseeable turns of fortune that can sometimes occur in this Earthly vida loca. It was meant to be, no more nor less.
Sam Butera (August 17, 1927 – June 3, 2009) was an American tenor saxophonist and singer best noted for his collaborations with Louis Prima and Keely Smith. Butera is frequently regarded as a crossover artist who performed with equal ease in both R&B and the post-big band pop style of jazz that permeated the early Vegas nightclub scene.
Butera was born and raised in an Italian-American family in New Orleans, where his father, Joe, ran a butcher shop and played guitar in his spare time. He heard the saxophone for the first time at a wedding when he was seven years old, and, with his father’s encouragement, he began to play.
Butera’s professional career blossomed early, beginning with a stint in big band drummer Ray McKinley’s orchestra directly after high school. Butera was named one of America’s top upcoming jazzmen by Look magazine when he was only eighteen years old, and, by his early twenties, he had landed positions in the orchestras of Tommy Dorsey, Joe Reichman, and Paul Gayten.
As the big band era wound down and heavy touring became less common among jazz musicians, Butera re-settled in New Orleans, where he played regularly at the 500 Club for four years. The 500 Club was owned by Louis Prima’s brother, Leon, and it was this connection that led him to his much-heralded Vegas-based collaborations with Prima and Smith.
Prima transitioned from big band to Vegas somewhat hastily, having signed a contract with the Sahara without having first assembled a back-up band. From his Vegas hotel room, Prima phoned Butera in New Orleans and had him assemble a band posthaste. Butera and the band drove from New Orleans to Las Vegas in such a hurry that they had not taken time to give their act a name. On opening night in 1954, Prima asked Butera before a live audience what the name of his band was. Butera responded spontaneously, “The Witnesses”, and the name stuck.
Butera remained the bandleader of The Witnesses for more than twenty years. During that time, he performed with Louis Prima and/or Keely Smith on such Prima-associated songs as “That Old Black Magic”, “Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody,” “Come on-a My House,” and “I Wan’na Be Like You” (from Disney’s The Jungle Book). Richard and Robert Sherman, composers of the songs for the Disney animated film, agreed to cast Prima, Butera and their band after executives from the Walt Disney Company urged them to travel to Las Vegas to witness the band’s live act in person.
Butera is noted for his raucous playing style, his off-color humor, and the innuendo in his lyrics. The arrangement he made with Prima of “Just a Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody” has been covered by David Lee Roth, Los Lobos, Brian Setzer, The Village People, and Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. In addition to his accomplishments as a saxophonist and composer, Butera is widely regarded as the inspiration for the vocal style of fellow New Orleans-born jazz singer Harry Connick, Jr.
After Prima’s death in 1978, Butera renamed his band “The Wildest,” and played for another 25 years, mostly at Las Vegas lounges. As Burt Kearns recounts on PleaseKillMe, “He paid tribute to Louis Prima every night, opening each set with ‘When You’re Smiling’ and closing with ‘When the Saints Go Marching In,’ leading the horn section on a stroll through the audience, slapping palms, shaking hands, and somehow continuing to blow that saxophone, as always, with a smile on his face.”
Folks, THAT’S entertainment for sure and certain, of a stripe they just ain’t making anymore. They don’t make ‘em like Louie Prima, Keely Smith, and Sam Butera anymore either, and that’s a crying shame.
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One of the people and bands that set the stage for RnR.