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Prima’s jumping ebullience, Keely played it deadpan straight, her
melodious contralto a reliable foil to Louie’s torrent of scat lines. In
1953, Keely Smith became the fourth Mrs. Prima.
Prima featuredher ingenue image as an alter ego to his gregariousness
in an act that made Smith a star. In 1954 they became a draw in Las
Vegas, bought a house and started having kids. At Prima’s behest,
a young tenor sax player, Sam Butera, left Leon Prima’s band at
the 500 Club in New Orleans and flew to Las Vegas to assume
creative control of the band. Besides sharpening the spotlight on
Keely, Butera developed sizzling call-and-response passages with
Louis, singing back instrumentally to his pumping vocals.
But as Butera recalled in a radio interview many years later, after
Prima was gone, though the two of them regularly played golf at a
course in Vegas, a sense of closeness eluded the saxophonist. Butera
got choked up, almost sobbing, in the
American Routes
interview
with Nick Spitzer, one of those rare broadcast moments that yield
insight into the mysteries of human chemistry. Butera was clearly
sentimental in recalling the high times long gone, but he was
missing something else — a friendship that had never quite jelled
as he had wished.
Prima was a natural showman and something of a ham; as a
musician and singer he had a superb sense of timing. You hear it
best on a song like “That Old Black Magic” — available on
Louis
Prima: Collectors Series,
on Capitol — with a racing tingle of the
drums as Louis and Keely launch into alternating lines of an up-
tempo lovers’ exchange.
He:
That old black magic has me in its spell
She: That old black magic that you weave so well
He: Icy fingers up and down my spine
She: The same old witchcraft when your eyes meet mine
He: The same old tingle that I feel inside
She: When that elevator starts its ride
He: Down and down I go,
She: Round and round I go
He: Like a leaf that’s
Both: Caught in the tide
Prima’s “Sing, Sing, Sing” is a gem of musicianship.The song opens
with a conga beat and Butera’s chiseled sax bursts, circling a snake-
like melody over the throbbing percussions, a long tension-building
intro for the entrance of Prima’s voice: “Sing, sing, sing, everybody
start to sing…” as he takes the tune into regions of scat singing
strong enough to rock a roomful of dancers.
Balancing marriage, child-raising and high-octane gigs in Vegas
would strain the most placid of souls. Prima’s roving eye didn’t help.
In 1961 Keely filed for divorce. Prima eventually found a new young
vocalist, Gia Maione, whom he married and performed with, and
he had two more children with her.
Prima’s career was struggling in the onslaught of rock music in
1967 when he recorded the voice of the orangutan King Louie
in Disney’s cartoon feature,
The Jungle Book,
singing “I Wanna Be
Like You.”The film was so popular that Disney hired him for two
recordings of songs spun from the storylines of the movie.
But the old magic of his recording fire in the peak years had dimmed;
though he soldiered on with Sam Butera and theWitnesses, playing
major venues and appearing in a telethon with Frank Sinatra, his
career had gone into a holding pattern.
He bought a country house in Covington and began spending
stretches in New Orleans, renewing old friendships. But worsening
headaches revealed a tumor, and in 1975 he underwent brain surgery
in Los Angeles. To the shock of everyone close to him, Prima never
regained consciousness; Gia oversaw his transfer to a New Orleans
hospital, where he spent his final years in a coma. He died in 1978.
Years after his death, another of Prima’s signature songs, “Jump,
Jive and Wail” got new life in a Gap television ad. It is tempting
to think that if Prima, who died at 68, had enjoyed good health
another decade, the gifted entertainer might have found a way to
keep moving with the times; his
Jungle Book
popularity suggests
that the potential was there.
At his grave in Metairie Cemetery, Gia had lines from another of
his famous songs carved into marble as a tribute:
“When the end comes
I know,
They’ll say,
‘Just A Gigolo’
As life goes on
Without me.”
Louis Prima