By Lauren de AlbuquerqueZydeco Royalty: “Queen Ida” Lewis Guillory
“Queen Ida” is the first female accordion player to lead a zydeco band. Favoring a 31-button accordion, she is noted for her melodic playing, and for focusing on the treble side of her instrument.
Born in Lake Charles on Jan. 15, 1929, she was the daughter of a rice farmer. During harvests and other festivities, she often helped the womenfolk cook for 30 or 40 farmers. After dinner, accordions, rub boards, and harmonicas were brought out and music filled the night. Guillory came from a talented family—her father played the harmonica, and her uncles played the accordion and fiddle. Her mother also played the accordion, and it was her instrument that Guillory first learned to play, after taking piano lessons.
The family eventually moved to Beaumont, and then made their way to San Francisco with so many other Creole and Cajun people who were looking for better life at that time. But the family’s first language was French, and wherever they went, they took their culture and music with them. There were many friends and relatives in the Bay Area from Louisiana, so Guillory’s growing years were filled with the music and delicious food of her former home.
In 1947, she married a fellow Louisianan, Ray Guillory. Homesick for Louisiana, the couple began hosting gatherings for other displaced people from Louisiana, serving up both their native cuisine and their distinctive music.
But while Guillory loved her music, she spent her young adult years raising her family, and only pulled out the accordion for social occasions. When her three children were all school-aged, she became a part-time bus driver. As they grew older, Guillory's friends began encouraging her to perform publicly.
In the early 70s, she began performing with the Barbary Coast Band and also with the Playboys, immediately attracting a wide following. She got her stage name in 1975 during a Mardi Gras celebration in the Bay Area, where she was formally crowned "Queen of the Zydeco Accordion and Queen of Zydeco Music." The following year, she and her band played at the Monterey Jazz and Blues Festival. She also signed to GNP/Crescendo Records, a Los Angeles-based jazz label.
She soon got offers to tour in Europe, and her career took off. In 1982, Guillory won the Grammy for Best Ethnic or Traditional Folk Recording for her album Queen Ida and the Bon Temps Zydeco Band on Tour. She received her fourth Grammy nomination in 1986. She also won the WC Handy Female Blues Vocalist of the Year Award for 1989.
Guillory also co-authored a cookbook, Cookin' with Queen Ida in 1990, which featured Creole recipes. She continues to tour and perform, although she has not recorded any more albums.
All the World’s A Play: Rosa Hart
June 12, 1964) Born in Woodville, Mississippi, on Aug. 27 1900, Rosa Hart’s family moved to Lake Charles when she was 11. She graduated from Lake Charles High School in 1917, and from Sophie Newcomb College, a women’s college associated with Tulane University in New Orleans, in 1921.
A trailblazer from the start, Hart became the first female cheerleader in the nation during her years at Newcomb College and Tulane University. She claims to have been the first woman in America to be awarded the right to wear an athletic letter and was given a gold football.
She returned to Lake Charles after college, and taught at Lake Charles High School from 1921 through 1924, where she also directed the school’s plays.
In 1922, the Little Theatre Guild was formed in Lake Charles, comprised of a group of individuals interested in literature and the theater. Hart became a member of this group. Eventually, she and five others would become the founding members of the Lake Charles Little Theatre in 1927.
As with most fledgling little theaters, the group started out by offering evenings of one-act plays. On Feb. 24, 1927, the first production was announced. By the time the first plays were performed, there were 213 members and the theatre had $1,000 in its treasury—even though they were borrowing the facilities of St. James Episcopal Church to stage their productions.
Within a year, it appears that Hart assumed full directorial duties for the theatre. Since she had always been the driving force behind the organization, it seems only natural that she would take over full control. She was theatre director for 30 years, working diligently to make it all happen.
The final production of the 1947-48 season proved particularly interesting for the Little Theatre. Hart somehow managed to have Life magazine send a reporter, along with photographer Michael Rougier to Lake Charles to do a story. The group was doing The Great Big Doorstep, a play that depicted Cajun life.
As a result of the Life article, which ran in the June 28, 1948 issue, the Lake Charles Little Theatre helped to found the Sherman, Texas, Little Theatre; the New Iberia Little Theatre; the Central Louisiana Little Theatre (CENLA) in Alexandria; and re-organize the defunct Beaumont Little Theatre.
The Lake Charles Little Theatre had already helped start Little Theatres in Port Arthur, Opelousas, Crowley, Lake Arthur, DeRidder, and Lafayette. Members visited personally and helped direct plays, set up membership drives, and organize guidelines for the groups.
Hart formally retired before the 1957-58 season under the orders of her doctors due to a heart condition. But it was difficult for Hart to let go. As Director Emeritus, she still had a hand in the productions, but not enough to satisfy her ego and she ended up causing conflict among the new directors and actors. Eventually, she moved on, and opened the 3 R’s bookstore on Pujo St. until her death on June 12, 1964.
Nellie Lutcher’s Blues
Nellie Lutcher was an African-American R&B and jazz singer and pianist, who achieved prominence in the late 1940s and early 1950s. She was most recognizable for her distinctive voice, and was credited as an influence by Nina Simone, among others. Her brother was the saxophonist Joe Woodman Lutcher and her nephew was Latin jazz percussionist Daryl "Munyungo" Jackson.
She was born in Lake Charles to Isaac and Suzie Lutcher on Oct, 15, 1912-- the eldest daughter of 15 children. Her father was a bass player, and her mother a church organist. She started playing piano at an early age, and her father soon formed a family band. At age 12, she had the honor of playing with Ma Rainey, when Rainey's regular pianist fell ill. Searching for a temporary replacement in Lake Charles, one of Lutcher’s neighbors told Rainey that there was a little girl who played in church who might be able to fill in.
When she was 14, Lutcher joined her father in Clarence Hart's Imperial Jazz Band. In her mid-teens, she married the band's trumpet player, but the marriage was short-lived. In 1933, she joined the Southern Rhythm Boys, writing their arrangements and touring with them.
In 1935, she moved to Los Angeles, where she married Leonel Lewis and had a son. She began to sing and play swing piano throughout the area, and developed her own distinctive style, influenced by Earl Hines, Duke Ellington and Nat "King" Cole, who was a good friend.
She was not widely known until 1947, when she performed at the March of Dimes talent show at Hollywood High School. Her performance came to the attention of Dave Dexter, a scout for Capitol Records, who immediately signed her to a contract.
Her first release, the R&B-styled “Hurry On Down,” became a US Top 20 hit that same year, and was followed by “He's A Real Gone Guy,” which went to No. 2 on the R&B chart and crossed over to the pop charts, where it reached No. 15.
In 1948, she had a string of further R&B chart hits, the most successful being "Fine Brown Frame," her third No. 2 R&B hit. She toured extensively and wrote many of her own songs. And unlike most African-American artists of the period, she retained the valuable publishing rights to them.
Eventually, her popularity faded, and during the late 60s and early 70s she took a staff job with the Hollywood Local Branch of the Musicians' Union, still occasionally playing clubs. Lutcher enjoyed a resurgence of popularity and continued to perform occasionally until the 1990s, in New York and elsewhere. She also invested successfully in property. She died in on June 8, 2007, at the age of 94.
Sources:MSU Archives, Artists Direct.com
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