Lawrence "Booker T." Laury (September 2, 1914 – September 23, 1995) was an American

boogie-woogie Boogie-woogie is a genre of blues music that became popular during the late 1920s, developed in African-American communities since 1870s.Paul, Elliot, ''That Crazy American Music'' (1957), Chapter 10, p. 229. It was eventually extended from pi ...

, blues,

gospel Gospel originally meant the Christian message (" the gospel"), but in the 2nd century it came to be used also for the books in which the message was set out. In this sense a gospel can be defined as a loose-knit, episodic narrative of the words a ...

and

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

pianist and singer. Laury worked with

Memphis Slim John Len Chatman (September 3, 1915 – February 24, 1988), known professionally as Memphis Slim, was an American blues pianist, singer, and composer. He led a series of bands that, reflecting the popular appeal of jump blues, included saxopho ...

and

Mose Vinson Mose Vinson (June 2 or August 7, 1917 – November 16, 2002) was an American boogie-woogie, blues and jazz pianist and singer. His recordings included "Blues with a Feeling" and "Sweet Root Man". Vinson worked with Booker T. Laury and James C ...

but did not record his debut album until he was in his late sixties. He appeared in two films; '' Great Balls of Fire!'', the biopic about Jerry Lee Lewis' early career, and the documentary '' Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads'', in which musicologist, writer and blues producer Robert Palmer, along with Dave Stewart from the band Eurythmics, interview and play with blues musicians from Memphis, Tennessee and the North Hill Country area of Mississippi.

Biography

Laury was born in

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the seat of Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 U.S. census, Memphis is the second-mos ...

, and grew up with his lifelong friend

. At the age of six, after helping his mother play the family's

pump organ The pump organ is a type of free-reed organ that generates sound as air flows past a vibrating piece of thin metal in a frame. The piece of metal is called a reed. Specific types of pump organ include the reed organ, harmonium, and melodeon. Th ...

, Laury learned to play the keyboards. His barrelhouse playing style, which he developed alongside Slim, was based on the influence of the Memphis performers

Roosevelt Sykes Roosevelt Sykes (January 31, 1906July 17, 1983) was an American blues musician, also known as "the Honeydripper". Career Sykes was born the son of a musician in Elmar, Arkansas. "Just a little old sawmill town", Sykes said of his birthplace. The ...

Sunnyland Slim Albert Luandrew (September 5, 1906March 17, 1995), "Blues pianist and singer Sunnyland Slim was born Albert Luandrew in Vance, Mississippi, September 5, 1906 (most sources say 1907, but the Social Security Death Index and 1920 census data give t ...

, and

Speckled Red Rufus George Perryman (October 23, 1892 – January 2, 1973), known as Speckled Red, was an American blues and boogie-woogie piano player and singer noted for his recordings of "The Dirty Dozens", exchanges of insults and vulgar remarks that have ...

. In the early 1930s, and in the company of the younger

, Slim and Laury began playing in local clubs. In 1935, Sykes suggested to Laury and Slim that they relocate to Chicago, with a view to obtaining a recording contract. Slim took the advice, but Laury decided to remain in Memphis, where he played in gambling houses and clubs for decades. Laury had a large hand width, which enabled him to span ten keys. His playing dexterity was such that, after losing one finger on his left hand following an accident with a circular saw in the 1950s, he was still able to play well. Based around

Beale Street Beale Street is a street in Downtown Memphis, Tennessee, which runs from the Mississippi River to East Street, a distance of approximately . It is a significant location in the city's history, as well as in the history of blues music. Today, t ...

, in Memphis, as that area started to degenerate, Laury traveled around

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the O ...

and

Missouri Missouri is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Ranking 21st in land area, it is bordered by eight states (tied for the most with Tennessee): Iowa to the north, Illinois, Kentucky and Tennessee to the east, Arkansas t ...

. Despite differing fortunes, his friendship with Slim did not diminish over the years, up to Slim's death in 1988. Laury recorded his debut album in his late sixties, entitled ''Booker T. Laury and Friends: Nothing but the Blues,'' released on the France-based record label, Blue Silver, in 1981. A 1980 Paris concert was released by Indigo Records in France in 1982. The 1989

Dennis Quaid Dennis William Quaid (born April 9, 1954) is an American actor known for a wide variety of dramatic and comedic roles. First gaining widespread attention in the late 1970s, some of his notable credits include '' Breaking Away'' (1979), '' The ...

film '' Great Balls of Fire!'' portrayed the young

Jerry Lee Lewis Jerry Lee Lewis (September 29, 1935October 28, 2022) was an American singer, songwriter and pianist. Nicknamed "The Killer", he was described as " rock & roll's first great wild man". A pioneer of rock and roll and rockabilly music, Lewis ma ...

and Jimmy Swaggart looking into a

juke joint Juke joint (also jukejoint, jook house, jook, or juke) is the vernacular term for an informal establishment featuring music, dancing, gambling, and drinking, primarily operated by African Americans in the southeastern United States. A juke joint ...

to see Laury playing "Big Legged Woman." The attention helped boost Laury's popularity. In 1994, Bullseye Blues Records issued ''Nothin' but the Blues,'' an album of Laury's voice and piano, performing seven original compositions, two covers, and a story about how he got the nickname "Slop Jar" from his peers. The same year, the Austrian label Wolf Records released a live album, containing concert recordings made in 1987. Laury died of cancer in September 1995, at the age of 81, in Memphis. He has a brass note on Beale Street's Walk of Fame.

Discography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Laury, Booker T 1914 births 1995 deaths American blues pianists American male pianists American jazz pianists American blues singers Boogie-woogie pianists Memphis blues musicians Gospel blues musicians Deaths from cancer in Tennessee 20th-century American singers 20th-century American pianists 20th-century American male singers American male jazz musicians Southland Records artists

Biography

Discography

See also

References