Work : Work, Work, Work

Lee Dorsey: Work, Work, Work

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If you're looking for motivation this Monday, you've come too the wrong place. Allen Toussaint and Lee Dorsey, the New Orleans team that gave us the Top 10 hit "Working in the Coalmine", actually recorded this cut a year earlier for Dorsey's Ride Your Pony album in 1966.

I look for a job both day and night
 I can't find nothin' that will suit me right
A little bit of nerve I'm not tryin' to shake
But everything I've found seems too much like work



The following year, Lee was still looking for a job.

Nine Lives: The Kitty Cat Song

Lee Dorsey: The Kitty Cat Song

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A New Orleans native who once boxed as "Kid Chocolate", Lee Dorsey was already in his 40's when he started pummeling the pop charts with hits like "Ya Ya" and "Working In a Coalmine". For the B-side to his 1966 single "Ride Your Pony", Lee recorded this infectious little kitty ditty.  A lot of Dorsey's songs back then were produced by Allen Toussaint with his house band, The Meters, providing instrumental backup.

That same year, The Troggs recorded "The Kitty Cat Song" for their debut album "From Nowhere...The Troggs".

Nonsense: Ya Ya

Lee Dorsey: Ya Ya

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This song is so infectious and fun, it's hard not to love. America agreed by making it a number 1 hit in 1962.

In the song, which was apparently inspired by a nursery rhyme, but for the life of me I couldn't tell you which, seems to be referring to a lover as Ya Ya. He's "sitting in La La waiting for my Ya Ya". Regardless, the song is clear, he wants her to hurry up and get to where he is.

Work: Working In The Coal Mine

Lee Dorsey: Working In The Coal Mine

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Working In A Coal Mine brought together two Kings of the New Orleans music community - its greatest composer, Allen Toussaint and R&B singer/songwriter/musician, Lee Dorsey. It's hard to hear the words "coal mine" and not think of this song. Listening to Lee plaintively ask "how long can this go on?" causes me to start thinking of my nice comfy bed.

With Hurricane Gustav bearing down towards New Orleans and the Gulf Coast, let's send good thoughts to the folks living in the danger zone. I couldn't imagine what it would be like having yet another disaster hit the area in just three years time.