MY SEARCH FOR TIPITINA, Part 2

Patricia Walton is Professor Longhair’s daughter, and a genuinely sweet person. We’re involved in some tee shirt business so when we met recently to restock, I asked her the question:

“What is the meaning of Tipitina? What is this song all about?”

She didn’t have an immediate answer, but said she’d find out. I implored her to NOT go on some wild goose chase; I don’t want to burden her. She ignored that, started making phone calls,even hauled herself down to the Hogan Jazz Archive at Tulane University.

She also got in touch with New Orleans writer/broadcaster Grant Morris. According to Morris “Byrd himself has said many times and to many different people that it's named after a volcano.” Morris pointed to a 1977 Figaro interview by Bunny Matthews:

MATTHEWS: “Can you clear up the mystery of Tipitina – Where does it come from? It’s not somebody’s name, is it?"

LONGHAIR: “Oh no…that comes from way back. I was reading in the paper about this volcano exploding – I don’t know where it was…I think maybe in Hawaii – I liked it and wrote my song.”

Matthews continues: I thought he probably meant Krakatoa, so I suggested that to him as the possible source: "No," he insisted, "It was called Tipitina."

Quint Davis corroborates the volcano thing in a Gambit cover story:

“Fess told me that Tipitina was the name of an African volcano that he found in a book. I don't know if that's definitive, but it's what he told me. "

In that same Gambit story, Bunny Matthews offers another alleged source of inspiration:

“Professor Longhair had all these apocryphal stories about where the name 'Tipitina" came from. One was that his neighborhood pot dealer was Tipitina. She had no feet, just two stumps. And she would hobble out to the car to bring the weed out, tipping over. Her name was Tina, so she was Tippy Tina."

Now THAT’S an evocative mental image! And it clicks – little mama wants a dollar. If you’ll pardon the pun, this explanation has legs…The previous installment of this blog elicited this variant from reader Big D Schaibly:

“According to Billy Delle, noted New Orleans Music Historian and WWOZ show host, Fess told him directly that the song came while Fess was working at a music store in the Quarter, after his day job as a janitor for the school board. Tip-a-Tina was a young girl who was afflicted by "folidimide" and born with a birth defect that caused her to walk on tip toes. She was a street person in the Quarter and Fess would see her, and play the tune as she came by the music store to panhandle each day.”

(The drug Thalidomide was marketed from 1957 to 1961; the song "Tipitina" was composed and recorded in 1953. If indeed there was a birth defect, it could not have been from "folidimide.")

Further Internet trawling dredged up this nugget, from a commenter named “Turk” on music fan Paul Colyer’s blog:

"I lived in New Orleans, in the building that once housed that "dusty record shop" where Fess was "discovered" sweeping up. J&M Records, with the back room set up as the original (and therefore only) recording studio in New Orleans. Where Fess and the rest of the New Orleans scene invented first R&B and then Rock 'N Roll 1948-1953…One night I got Earl King up in there. He told me that "Tipitina" was really about a woman named Tina who sold reefer out of her house. People would drive up, and Tina, who'd had her feet amputated after some typically New Orleans misfortune, would "tippy-toe" up on her pegged leg points with the product. Other products and services were available to those who knew to ask. Fess alludes to each and all of them in the "nonsense" lyrics he put out in those different recordings.”

While this is all third- and fourth-hand information, there seems to be a consensus forming. The volcano story, a charming bit of apparent creative confusion, is simpler and much more palatable than the amputee pot dealer (or street person) explanation.

Picture Roy Byrd doing an interview for a magazine. He doesn’t know who’ll read it, or where it’ll end up. New Orleans is a conservative, reactionary place. He’s a cautious man, whose encounters with the law over marijuana interfered with his career in the 1950s. Twenty years later, his career resurgent, he might be reluctant to pull out that Tippy Tina story. Pressed for an explanation, he might improvise some chestnut about a volcano, on the spur of the moment.

Picture Roy Byrd, a musical and lyrical genius, whose hit song (purportedly) contains heavily-coded drug references. When young white acolytes start pestering him for an explanation, he might decide to pull their legs, throw them off the trail. He might choose to cover his tracks, and deliberately confuse the issue, a clever and timeless artistic strategy.

Maybe there really was a neighborhood character named Tina. And maybe there really was a volcano. Maybe he got the name confused, and the club could have been called Krakatoa’s. Maybe both stories are true, or neither of them. And where the hell is Loberta in all this? Is Loberta Tippy Tina? Is Tipitina, the imaginary African-or-Hawaiian volcano, a metaphor for a dynamic, alluring woman?

Still no closer to an answer, but the digging continues. The next chapter of this investigation looks at the 1953 Atlantic recording session.

My Search for Tipitina

“What is the meaning of Tipitina?”

That’s a question that Tipitina’s music club and Foundation workers get asked again and again. It’s a good question, and no one seems to have an authoritative answer. So I decided to find out for myself.

Tipitina’s (the music club and associated Foundation) derives its name from the song “Tipitina” by Professor Longhair (Henry Roeland Byrd, aka Roy Byrd, “Fess” to his fans). Byrd wrote and recorded the song in 1953 for Atlantic Records. It featured a rumba-derived bass line and a right hand that careens from lilting tinkling to frenzied hammering. The song was a local hit in the 1950s, and eventually appeared on the 1972 “New Orleans Piano” LP.

At first glance the verses appear to be about a woman named Loberta who likes to party. The choruses seem nonsensical, with no obvious connection to the verses.

Tipitina tra la la la

Whoa la la la-ah tra la la

Tipitina, oola malla walla dalla

Tra ma tra la la

Hey Loberta, oh poor Loberta

Girl you hear me calling you

Well you’re three times seven, baby

Knows what you want to do

Say Loberta, oh poor Loberta

Girl, you tell me where you been

When you come home this morning, honey

You had your belly full of gin

I'll say hurry, hurry, come on Loberta

Girl, you have company waiting for you at home

Why don't you hurry little Loberta girl, hurry

Don't leave that boy alone

Tipitina tra la la la

Whoa la la la-ah tra la la la

Tipitina, hoola malla walla dalla

Tra ma ti na na

Come on baby, we're going balling

We're gonna have ourselves a good time

We gonna hoola tralla walla malla dalla

Drink some mellow wine

©1954 word and music by Roy H. Byrd & Cosimo V. Matassa.

The chorus consists of ‘Tipitina,’ an apparently-coined word, a bunch of ‘tra la la’s, and this enigmatic line ‘oola malla walla dalla.’ Writers including Will Flannery, and interpreters as noteworthy as Dr. John, translate that phrase as “little mama wants a dollar.” By some accounts Fess may have sang it that way on occasion.

If little mama wants a dollar, she’s presumably involved in some type of economic transaction. One can speculate about nature and purpose of this exchange; it’s not difficult to imagine Longhair’s protagonists in various shady dealings. But maybe it refers to something more innocent.

My first stop on this quest was 501 Napoleon Street, New Orleans’ legendary shrine to Professor Longhair, Tipitina’s uptown music club. After rubbing the head of the Fess sculpture, I dashed up the stairs and accosted Nancy Romano, the club’s general manager, and Mary von Kurnatowski, co-owner of Tip’s since 1996.

Mary and Nancy said they’d heard Tina was the name of a bartender at a joint Fess used to frequent. She might have provided other goods or services, in addition to pouring drinks. Fess’ song was urging the listeners to tip Tina. Tipping Tina connects nicely with little mama wanting a dollar. A reasonable explanation, but admittedly based on third-hand information, so I kept digging.

HEY LOBERTA

Loberta is a weird name, like a faux-Japanese pronunciation of ‘Roberta’. Loberta crops up one other time, in 1959 as the title of a song by Huey “Piano” Smith and the Clowns. Clowns vocalist Bobby Marchand was reportedly leaving the group, so a Marchand sound-alike named Frankie Ford was recruited. The track was retitled “Roberta” and released as the B-side of the “Sea Cruise” single, another Huey Smith composition which launched Ford’s career.

Ace records owner Johnny Vincent allegedly told Huey Smith that the Clowns didn’t need another release at the time, they already had a lots of sides out, so the record was credited to Frankie Ford. Taken in the context of the time, a period when black R&B artists were driven from the market by white pop crooners, this looks like a case of Vincent relegating the African-American composer and band to obscurity, so as to focus on the white lead singer.

But that all came six years later, and has no apparent connection to Longhair’s composition, beyond the name. Fess’ 1953 Loberta is an enigma. The narrator of the song is talking to Loberta, asking if she can hear him calling, asking where she’s been. He tells Loberta to hurry, someone’s waiting for her – probably the narrator himself – and then enjoins her to go "balling.”

It’s a tight little story line. The narrator gently chastises Loberta for coming home in the morning with a “belly full of gin.” He, or somebody, is impatient to take her out again. It’s fairly straightforward, until the final couplet, “We gonna hoola tralla walla malla dalla / Drink some mellow wine.” He’s clearly suggesting some kind of activity, punctuated by wine drinking, but what exactly is “hoola tralla walla malla dalla?” At the next-to-last possible moment, Fess has jumped back down the rabbit hole. Maybe it’s Mardi Gras Indian talk, bastardized Creole French, or heavily-coded ghetto slang. Maybe it’s complete nonsense, a red herring meant only to amuse and confuse.

And what about the relationship, if any, between Loberta and Tipitina? Are they the same person? Are they even in the same story line? The genius of this song seems to lie somewhere between its apparent simplicity, and cryptic impenetrability. The closer one looks at it, the less sense it makes. In the first verse, “Well you’re three times seven, baby / Knows what you want to do” it’s impossible to know whether he’s singing you’re (you are) or your (possessive). Is he saying that Loberta is three times seven, presumably meaning she’s twenty-one years old? Is he referring to someone else, perhaps himself, as “your three times seven baby” i.e. her twenty-one-year old lover, or maybe even her adult child? One apostrophe can make a lot of difference. Lacking any definitive printed version of the lyrics, the line remains ambiguous.

It’s much easier to tease out the meaning of “Come on baby, we're going balling.” The dictionary says balling is a vulgar term for sexual intercourse. A ball is a type of formal dance party; having a ball means experiencing good time. One might thinly interpret the phrase to mean ‘we’re going partying’ but it seems more likely that Fess would have intended all meanings.

Loberta sounds like a fun chick, she likes to drink and stay out all night. We’re led to believe that she’s sexually active... But is she Tipitina? Text analysis has brought us no closer to an answer. In fact I’m more confused, but I’m just getting started…In the next installment I talk to Longhair’s daughter, about volcanoes and amputees.

New Orleans City Council Praises Tipitina's Foundation, Instruments A Comin'

New Orleans’ City Council yesterday issued a proclamation recognizing and honoring Tipitina’s Foundation for the success of our INSTRUMENTS A COMIN’ program, which supports music programs in New Orleans area schools.

The INSTRUMENTS A COMIN’ program has provided more than 2.2 million dollars’ worth of new, high-quality band instruments to New Orleans schools, benefiting more than 2,200 students across more than 60 public and charter schools.

The proclamation, issued at the request of District “A” Councilmember Susan Guidry and signed by the entire council, reads as follows:

Whereas, the City Council takes great pride in recognizing those individuals, institutions, and organizations who are dedicated to the City of New Orleans; and

Whereas, the mission of the Tipitina’s Foundation is to support Louisiana and New Orleans’ irreplaceable music community and preserve the state’s unique musical culture; and

Whereas, the Tipitina’s Foundation has been striving diligently to achieve this mission, since its inception, through four programs which focus primarily on young musicians; and

Whereas, the Instruments A Comin’ program has raised more than 2.2 million dollars’ worth of instruments for the youth of New Orleans over the course of its 9 years of operation; and

Whereas, the program targets public and charter schools in the Greater New Orleans area with exceptional band programs, which encourages excellence in elementary, middle, and high school music programs; and

Whereas, over 2,200 students across more than 60 public and charter schools have been provided with new instruments from this program; and

Whereas, the Tipitina’s Foundation recently held its 9th annual benefit concert and auction for the Instruments A Comin’ program, which proved to be an enriching event for those who attended it and a valuable tool to raise funds for music programs; now, therefore,

BE IT PROCLAIMED THAT THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS recognizes and honors for the outstanding success of the Instruments A Comin’ program: THE TIPITINA’S FOUNDATION at the request of Councilmember Susan G. Guidry.

In accepting the proclamation I told the Council that it's an honor to do this kind of work, and we genuinely appreciate the recognition. In the course of managing Instruments A Comin' we end up calling all the schools in town. What we've learned is that approximately 30% of the public and charter schools in Orleans Parish have no music teacher, and no music classes. Twenty-five percent of the students enrolled in RSC and OPSB schools are missing out on the very real developmental benefits of active music making. And losing the chance to participate in New Orleans' unique musical cultures. So we have a lot of work to do; these type of honors help.