February 17, 2008
directed rebirth
Widow
of
Ernie K-Doe--R&B pioneer
ANTOINETTE K-DOE [DECEASED MARDI GRAS DAY, 2009],
OF
"MOTHER-IN-LAW" LOUNGE
in
POST-KATRINA New Orleans
ERNIE K-DOE'S
'Here Come The Girls'
from Boots TV ad
video: Jonathan King
Antoinette saved Ernie along with her family.She took Ernie apart, put the pieces in a garbage bag and dragged him upstairs
NEW ORLEANS—When the floodwater of Hurricane Katrina engulfed the legendary Mother-In-Law Lounge and the National Guard rescued Antoinette K-Doe, she worried about what she had left behind.
She didn’t want to abandon her mother or her husband, R&B pioneer Ernie K-Doe, both interred down the street at St. Louis Cemetery No. 2. She hoped to save a career’s worth of photographs of Ernie, who died in 2001, and had spent three days carrying them upstairs to her apartment above the bar.
And she could hardly bear to leave Ernie’s mannequin, a macabre re-creation to some but a protector to Antoinette. To frighten off thieves, she dressed him in one of his flamboyant suits and sat him in a closet with her shotgun in his lap.
“People said, `Did you bring Ernie?’ Antoinette said, `No, I left him. They’re rescuing live bodies, not statues.’”
After living at a Boy Scout camp in Atlanta for about a month, Antoinette returned to her native New Orleans. The lounge, a haven for musicians since it opened in 1994, was a wreck. Five and a half feet of water had left it covered in mold and muck and God knows what else in the environs below the I-10 overpass where victims fled for safety. Her clothes, the bar, all of the bar stock, the kitchen equipment used to feed the participants after their weekly Thursday jam sessions in the back room and the stage where Ernie played, were unchallengeable.
Antoinette K-Doe, wife of the late Ernie K-Doe, reflects on the rebuilding process after Hurricane Katrina at the Mother-In-Law Lounge in New Orleans“I feel very lucky that I saved all my pictures,” said Antoinette, 65. “I knew we had to bring his band’s place back. But I didn’t know how, didn’t know where the money was coming from.”
It came from Hands On New Orleans, one of the volunteer organizations at the forefront of the rebuilding effort.
Among those who contributed to its cause was R&B star Usher. His donation was not directly used to refurbish the Mother-In-Law Lounge, but he visited the place one Sunday in May, and Antoinette recalls him saying, “I have to get you open.”
Hands On was also aided by its partners, the Tipitina’s Foundation and Sweet Home New Orleans.
The lounge’s grand reopening, complete with red carpet, was Aug. 30, 2006, a year and a day after Katrina made landfall. Volunteers from Hands On chapters in Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Atlanta were invited, along with musicians and a representative from the mayor’s office.
“I told everyone I was going to fine them $20 if they talked about the storm or politics,” Antoinette said. “We didn’t make much money; it was an open bar.”
She’s still struggling to make a living and was hospitalized in February, but Antoinette hopes Ernie is on the verge of a rebirth similar to his city’s.
The peak of his success came in 1961, when his “Mother-In-Law” went to No. 1 on the Billboard Top Pop Singles chart. According to Billboard, K-Doe’s was the 14th African-American single to hit No. 1 in the rock `n’ roll era (post-1955). He beat out Motown’s first, “Please Mr. Postman” by the Marvelettes in September 1961.
A mannequin of the late Ernie K-Doe still on display at the Mother-In-Law Lounge in New Orleans
Outside of New Orleans, Ernie’s work had been virtually forgotten until last Christmas, when his 1970 track “Here Come the Girls” was chosen for a TV campaign for Boots, the leading health and beauty retailer in the United Kingdom. The spot can be found on YouTube, and in December the song debuted at No. 71 on Billboard’s Top 75 in the U.K. It had been 46 years since K-Doe’s only other appearance on the British charts, when “Mother-In-Law” reached No. 29 in `61.
Antoinette plans to re-release “Here Come the Girls” in the United States with Ernie’s “Children of the World,” perhaps on vinyl. Ernie also had two recordings left in the vault when he died, but she intends to honor his wishes and wait 10 years after his passing before marketing them.
Antoinette said Boots knew little about Ernie when it picked the song.
“Boots was not aware I had a statue of Ernie. They were amazed when they heard about the statue, that I’m keeping his legacy alive,” she said. “What they did enhanced it.”
Antoinette was a devoted fan of Ernie’s when she met him while working at a New Orleans bar. He was on skid row, battling alcoholism, and she tried to help him overcome his addiction.
“I’d ask him to come share lunch with me, we’d sit and talk. We became close friends,” she said. “He was very proud. I helped him gain strength. He could rely on me.” They dated for 15 years before marrying in 1995.
When he passed, it was not Antoinette’s idea to craft a statue of Ernie. That came from a fan, about 30 years old, whom Ernie had helped to kick drugs and find a house and a job.
“He wanted to do something for the lounge and said, `It’s going to be a half-bust,’” Antoinette said.
“I didn’t like half-busts. I didn’t understand why half-busts didn’t have arms. So he said, `I’ll do a statue.’ I didn’t want to turn him down a second time.”
The mannequin was put together from scavenged pieces. Pictures of Ernie were used to carve his facial features. The face was white, so they took the head outside the bar and spray-painted it, trying to match Ernie’s skin tone.
Ernie’s brother insisted they add a bump on the left side of his cheek from where he’d been hit by a baseball bat when they were kids.
Antoinette styled the hair just as she had done for Ernie. They took the hands to a nail shop to get them manicured.
“One of his best friends came. He went to the bathroom, (saw the statue) and almost passed out,”Antoinette said.
“That’s when we knew we had it.”
Jackie Hughes, daughter of Antoinette K-Doe, peers out the front door of the Mother-In-Law Lounge in New Orleans, February 17, 2008Ernie still gets around—his statue, that is. He has been to football games and parties at his tomb every All Saints Day. Friend, John Blanchard takes him along when he sings at weddings and bachelor parties, propping the statue up when he performs the Allen Toussaint-penned “Mother-In-Law.” Ernie was to have been in this year’s Mardi Gras parade, but Antoinette’s illness scuttled that.
With Katrina approaching in late August 2005, Antoinette saved Ernie along with her family. She took Ernie apart, put the pieces in a garbage bag and dragged him upstairs. She took refuge with her granddaughter, then 15, her mother’s sister and a female tourist who had been in a car accident and had nowhere else to go.
Antoinette said she didn’t panic while they waited for rescue. But the situation got dicey when martial law was declared and the women heard men below, trying to break into the bar to steal the liquor.
She said she got out the shotgun her brother-in-law had given her, opened the window and fired over their heads, trying not to hit people above on the I-10 bridge.
“I said, `You’re not coming here. There’s more bullets,’” she said. “They scattered like blackbirds.”
Presumably the shotgun is still at the ready. The lounge is just a few blocks from Tent City, where the homeless have gathered under the interstate. Patrons must be buzzed in. Those who want to take a cab from downtown to the bar in the neighborhood of Treme, a once-proud black business district, might have to search for a willing driver.
Antoinette remains vigilant, guarding the lounge and with it her husband’s music legacy. She takes comfort from the smiling Ernie sitting in the corner.
“I don’t feel safe in here without him,” she said.
article reprint: 'POPMATTERS' from AKRON NEWSPAPER
*THIS POST IS DEDICATED TO THE DEAR MEMORY OF MY FRIENDS, ERNIE AND ANTOINETTE K-DOE, AS POSSIBLY, ALONG WITH THE ONLY WOMAN BRAVE ENOUGH TO ACCOMPANY ME, KAREN FORD, THEIR FIRST TWO WHITE BARFLIES. AND TO THE MONUMENT THAT WAS THE "MOTHER-IN-LAW" LOUNGE: NO MANNEQUINS. NO TOURISTS. NO CROWD. JUST ERNIE AND ANTOINETTE: ONE HOLDING COURT AT JUKEBOX, THE OTHER A BRAIDED-HAIRED, INDIAN SQAUW/BARTENDER [WHO WAS PARTICULARLY GOOD AT MAKING DRINKS WITH THE NAMES OF THE LIQUORS IN THEIR TITLE].
WE'LL MISS YOU BOTH, AND THE BEST BAR IN THE WORLD--IN THAT ORDER.
HAPPY MARDI GRAS, BABYDOLL!
