Bayou Maharajah

-

BAYOU MAHARAJAH explores the life, times and music of piano legend James Booker, who Dr. John described as "the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced." This roller coaster portrait traces Booker’s life from his early years as a chart-topping child prodigy, his star-studded years playing as a sideman, through to his outrageous solo career characterized by onstage performances in his underwear, dishing out drug-fueled conspiracy theories. Featuring interviews with the likes of Harry Connick Jr., Irma Thomas and Allen Toussaint and a generous helping of archival footage, the film brings to life the unforgettable story of this amazing musician.

James Carroll Booker III (December 17, 1939 – November 8, 1983) was an American New Orleans rhythm and blues keyboardist and singer. Flamboyant in personality and style, and a pianist of extraordinary technical skill, he was dubbed "the Black Liberace."

His 1960 recording "Gonzo" reached No. 43 on the Billboard magazine record chart and No. 3 in R&B, and he toured internationally in the 1970s. After being mainly a rhythm and blues artist, Booker later fused this genre with jazz and with popular music such as that of the Beatles, playing these in his signature backbeat. He profoundly influenced the New Orleans music scene, where his renditions and originals have been revived and are performed.

Booker's father and paternal grandfather were Baptist ministers. Both were pianists. He was born in New Orleans on December 17, 1939, to Ora, née Cheatham and Rev. James "Jimmie" Harald Booker, a New Orleans Baptist church pastor and World War I army veteran. Nicknamed "J.C.," Booker was a child prodigy, classically trained on piano from the age of six, and played the organ in his father's churches. Due to Rev. Jimmie Booker's health problems, Ora took her daughter Betty Jean (b. 1935) and son James to live near Ora's sister, Eva Sylvester, in Bay St. Louis, Mississippi, temporarily on several occasions. Those stays amounted to around half of Booker's childhood up to the age of 8. He returned permanently to New Orleans in 1948, and enrolled in the fourth grade at a school where he befriended fellow students Art Neville, Charles Neville, and Allen Toussaint. By 1949, Booker's parents had separated, and Ora remarried to Owen Champagne of New Orleans.

In 1949, at age 9, Booker was struck by an ambulance in New Orleans, which he said was traveling about 70 miles an hour. According to him, it dragged him for 30 feet (9 metres) and broke his leg in eight places, nearly requiring its amputation. He was given morphine, which he later regarded as a cause of his eventual drug addiction. The accident left him with a permanent limp.

Booker received a saxophone for his 10th birthday in December 1949. He had asked for a trumpet, yet mastered the saxophone despite not having chosen it. But he focused on the piano, and by age 11 was performing blues and gospel organ every Sunday on the New Orleans radio station, WMRY (where his sister had performed). The following year was his last in classical instruction, when Booker learned the entire set of J.S. Bach's Inventions and Sinfonias, performing these at a professional level by age 12.

Rev. Jimmie Booker died in 1953, the year that Booker began high school at Xavier University Preparatory School on Magazine Street. Ellis Marsalis Jr. was band director at the school at the time, and noted the highly advanced quality of Booker's playing of Bach. Even as a working musician by his mid-teens, he excelled at Xavier, especially in math, music, and Spanish, and graduated in 1957. He aspired to become a Catholic priest, but ultimately gave up the idea, instead choosing to express his faith through music.