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Legendary Cosimo Matassa dies at 88


al mcguire

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Last one, I promise

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/14/arts/music/cosimo-matassa-whose-studio-birthed-a-rock-n-roll-sound-dies-at-88.html?src=me

 

 

“Virtually every R&B record made in New Orleans between the late ’40s and the early ’70s was engineered by Cosimo Matassa, and recorded in one of his four studios,” Jeff Hannusch wrote in “I Hear You Knockin’: The Sound of New Orleans Rhythm and Blues” (1985).

More than 250 nationally charting singles and 21 gold records were recorded at the studio, most of them distinguished by what came to be known as the Cosimo sound: strong drums, heavy bass, light piano, heavy guitar and light horns. It is sometimes also called simply the New Orleans sound.

The studio became a sought-after resource for the independent labels that emerged or grew in importance after World War II. Chess, Aladdin, De Luxe, Atlantic, Savoy and Specialty, among others, used the studio, originally for just $15 an hour.

The hits born there included Little Richard’s “Tutti Frutti” and “Good Golly Miss Molly”; Big Joe Turner’s “Shake, Rattle and Roll”; Professor Longhair’s “Mardi Gras in New Orleans”; Smiley Lewis’s “I Hear You Knockin’ ”; Frankie Ford’s “Sea Cruise”; and Chris Kenner’s “Land of 1,000 Dances.”

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