Day 151: Louis Prima - The Wildest!

Sometimes you choose an album for a reason, at other times you find a 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die-list and just go with that, which is what I did today. I am a cultural lady so of course I have heard of Louis Prima before (I’ve seen the movie Elf so I know “Pennies in Heaven”) but you know the drill, I’ve never actually listened to him, let’s go.

Album cover courtesy of Capitol Records

Louis Prima was an Italian-American singer and trumpeter from New Orleans, born in 1910 and died in 1978. He made a name for himself playing in a New Orleans jazz band, then a swing act, then a big band group, later becoming the biggest lounge act in Las Vegas in the 1950s. For his 1956 debut album The Wildest! his label wanted to capture the feeling of seeing him live at 3am in the Sahara Hotel and Casino.

The album combines early rock and roll with swing, jazz and jump blues, and it’s infectiously fun. I thought I’d only know a few of the songs but quite a few of them are classics that you’ve probably heard around, like “Oh Marie”, “Just a Gigolo / Ain't Got Nobody" and "I'll Be Glad When You're Dead (You Rascal You)”. And Louis Prima’s voice is beautiful. It’s probably also familiar to many people from him voicing King Louis in the Jungle Book and him singing the song "I Wanna Be Like You".

My running list of albums to put on to make your day better just got one entry longer, but I’m also thinking this would be a top tier album to listen to while cooking. Main thing I’m thinking when listening to this is how incredibly fun it must have been to see this live, especially in Vegas in the ‘50s, before the advent of modern technology. I’m giving it a solid 8.5/10.