“Song for James”
Nick Spitzer: Davell Crawford, the man comes out swingin’, and that was “Song for James.”
Davell Crawford: James Booker, yeah.
NS: Tell them about James Booker. I mean, you met and knew James Booker.
DC: No, I did not. No, I did not.
NS: No? Just knew his legacy?
DC: I knew nothing of James Booker. You know how I found out about James Booker? I started playing at Snug Harbor when I was about fourteen or fifteen years old. And George, one of the owners, for my seventeenth birthday, gave me a stack–that was my birthday present–of James Booker CD's. I'd never heard James Booker, didn't grow up listening to James Booker. Actually, I didn't really grow up listening to New Orleans music. That’s a whole ‘nother thing, right?
NS: But there still is very much a New Orleans sound in Booker that we hear that you know so well, all those rolls and runs.
DC: Well, you know what I thought? I thought that–and I still think this way–you know, our upbringing was much the same. We started listening and hearing music first in the church. I did Catholic Church and the Baptist Church and other Protestant religions, and we studied, like I said, classical. We heard R&B, you know, country music was a big deal when I was a kid. You’re gonna have to remember that it was pop country music, but people like Crystal Gayle and Kenny Rogers and, you know, Dolly Parton. They were on the charts in the 70s. I was born in 1975, so that's what I heard on a day-to-day basis. So, I think James Booker, for him, the pop music during his time, it was the same thing. So he just knew how to infuse all of that. He just married it all together.
NS: I want to ask you. I've heard stories that one of your first public performances was probably about five or six blocks from here, playing piano out by Café du Monde.
DC: Exactly
NS: Seven years olds, eight years old.
DC: I was seven. Yeah.
NS: Wow.
DC: Yeah.
NS: Who got the piano out there for you?
DC: Well, so really this guy may still be out there, right? I thank him all the time.
NS: One of the guys offering chess games now?
DC: No, no. That guy's been there forever, right. He might have got a cut on my first gig, the chess guy. What happened, so this guy would wheel around this piano, and he had a telescope. So, if you've been down to Café Du Monde, you've seen the guy with the telescope, right? I thought it was his son. It's him! It’s the same guy after all these years! Anyway, you know, he would tell people, “Hey, you could see Mars if you give me, you know, three bucks,” or something like that or Jupiter. You know, hell, it's New Orleans, you know. So people would line up, and on Mondays, my grandmother would go down there with her girlfriend–they were beauticians. So I'd leave them and step away and ask the guy, “Hey mister, can I play your piano?” He’d say no. So, every week I'd ask him, and he'd say no. Well, one week I walked up, and after he told me no, his little telescope business got busy, and I walked over to the right a little bit, to the left, a little bit and just jumped on the piano. I knew I could play, come on. I mean you know. And so I started playing, and people came from all around, and he looked over at me, and he gave me the little the A-OK sign. It picked up his little telescope business, and now I was his sidekick, you know.
NS: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
DC: He needed a gimmick, so he had this little kid, you know.
NS: Come listen to Davell Crawford and see Mars, Jupiter.
DC: Right, there you go, there you go.
NS: Hey, listen, you know, the clock is ticking. We need to hear a little more from you.
DC: I've gotta play the piano?
NS: Yeah, yeah, yeah and then we’ll look through the telescope.
DC: Don't they have records?
NS: So what do you got in mind that that would work for you?
DC: I don't know. I'm just gonna play something.
NS: There you go.
“Morning Star” Davell Crawford
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