Remembering Willie Tee, Part II - The Gaturs Meet The Wild Magnolias

Bo Dollis

Either the Gaturs started out as The New Orleans Project or they were also known under that name, I've never been sure which. In 1971 the band hooked up with Big Chief Bo Dollis' Wild Magnolias to craft a new music together; a stunning blend of New Orleans funk and Mardi Gras Indian music that had never before been heard (remember that this is 5 years before the Meters/Nevilles team up with the Wild Tchapitoulas). Not only do these albums precede the Tchapitoulas album, they are, IMO, FAR superior. As much as I adore the Meters, this was a deeper, greasier funk groove than even my boys could manage; I think primarily due to the wonderful sax of brother Earl Turbinton, the twin miracles of Snooks Eaglin on guitar and Ervin Charles on bass (a man even George Porter looked up to) and of course the phenomenal vocals of Big Chief Bo Dollis. I swear there were nights when Bo would holler his "Heee Yaaaa!" to begin Hand Wanda and he would peel the last of the paint off the walls of the old Donna's on Rampart street.

It was Jazz Fest's Quint Davis who was at least partly responsible for this marriage and the beginnings of moving the Wild Magnolias from being just another tribe to being a professional music act. For me these two records are in my desert island picks, I just could not imagine being without them. The second album (1974) has my favorite Mardi Gras tune ever to this day, the Willie Tee penned 'New Suit'. The tendency is to focus on the powerhouse vocals and the whole 'different' nature of what is going on here, but you shouldn't lose site of the fact that they are inventing a genre that we take for granted now, 40 years down the road - the truth is even today it has never been done better.