A LABOR OF LOVE 50 YEARS IN THE MAKING

(For a more detailed version of this bio, CLICK HERE.)

Vertis Roy “Peanut” Conn was a singer and swing jazz violinist who first gained popularity throughout the mid-South in the late 1930s from playing hundreds of shows on radio station KALB in Alexandria, Louisiana. He was a rising star on the national scene by 1941 when Melody Maker magazine called him “one of the best swing violinists in the South and Southwest,” but his ascent was interrupted when the Army shipped him to the South Pacific the following year.

After losing a leg in the war, Peanut went back to central Louisiana and became a pillar of the community, while expanding his reputation as one of the most sought-after entertainers in the region, playing innumerable dances, conventions and night clubs with the Roy Conn Orchestra or one of his small combos.

Most of these recordings are from a pile of deteriorating reel-to-reel tapes found in the back of his closet after his untimely death at age 45 in 1964. One is a recording of a live radio show from 1952 or ‘53 and one is a live recording of his big band from the late ‘50s or early ‘60s. Three of the tapes contain songs he wrote and recorded in his living room.

Peanut Conn was my father. I was eleven when he died. I never heard him play the violin. These recordings are my connection to him and his music. They represent a very blurry snapshot of his love of performing and the joy it brought him and so many others.

I added my vocals and piano — plus acoustic bass and drums — to two of the songs he wrote. It’s the closest I’ll ever get to making music with my father.

HERE IS A PREVIEW OF EVERY TRACK: