HUGH LAURIE: As a child, I had a few heroes who weren't musicians:
Winston Churchill, PG Wodehouse, Muhammad Ali, Judi Dench,
but, look, that's only one hand and I've still got a thumb left over.
My musical heroes on the other hand,
well, they just don't fit on the other hand.
They slip through my fingers, like wet sardines.'
(CHEERING)
'But the thumb, the thumb was always taken and it's still pointing west.
'Where are we going?' you may be wondering.
Well, we're going to the Queen Mary.
The Queen, as a lot of you may know,
is moored on the west coast of the United States,
Long Beach, California.
The Queen Mary was the site of a recording.
The record was called Professor Longhair Live On The Queen Mary.
It was an absolutely seminal record.
We're going to...not recreate the night of that recording,
but offer a kind of tribute to a musician
who just changed everything for me.
'Now, in every television documentary,
you must have a journey.
Nobody knows why, it's just a given.
It's like tomato garnish.
Well, this is a film about my tomato garnish
and the culmination of a dream that I've had
since I looked adorably like this.
Growing up on the frontline in Berkshire,
I had no idea where blues music came from.
I just knew that I didn't want to live without it.'
# PROFESSOR LONGHAIR: Every Day I Have The Blues
# Every day
# Every day I have the blues
When I first heard that - that sort of wailing, blue note...
# Every day...
..it was like, it was like a door opening into this magical kingdom.
I hear it as music of great joy and passion and love,
and it's funny, a lot of the time.
You know, of course, it has pain and heartbreak in it too.
In fact, I think that all human life - all human life is in it.
# Every day, every day
# Every day, every day... #
# THE INK SPOTS: Into Each Life Some Rain Must Fall
'Being a young blues fan in England back then
was a fairly isolating experience.
To escape the pop orthodoxy, the call to prayer at the local disco,
we hid in basements and bedrooms, record shops and opium dens.
We'd fantasise about being in opium dens, whatever the hell they were.
We spent our pocket money on the latest US imports
and tried to learn every note.
We were few, but we were organised.
We recognised each other.
We had a code.'
The hamster is on the wheel.
(BUZZER)
Ah. How lovely to see you. Jools Holland. Come in. How are you?
So this is our studio, where we do everything.
This is where it all happens.
A couple of decades ago, I asked you if you would teach me the piano.
Yes.
You said, 'I won't teach you, unless you teach me how to act.'
Well, I didn't mean on the stage, I meant act generally, in life.
Oh, behave. How to behave? Yes. You've been such a role model.
Like, for example, how to hold a...?
Yes and not to put it down. Don't put it down. (LAUGHS)
I think there's a lot of music in acting, I personally believe.
When people make a song, they've got to become the...
They've got to become the song, or nobody'll believe them.
It is very similar to acting.
So this is the same as the piano in some studios...
..which has this jangly sound.
They all have their own voice as well.
That's erm...
(BLUES MUSIC)
In the logging camps, where the music was supposed to have first evolved -
in the 19th century, not the 20th century -
there was a famous pianist who was very fat, called Turk.
What he used to do, he was so big, was Mr Turk, that he...
At the time, it was very popular, doing the stride piano,
which was all of this sort of...
(STRIDE-STYLE MUSIC)
..but he was so big, his hand couldn't stride like this -
Across his stomach. ..across this vastness that was most of him.
And so he developed...
..sort of a left hand that was a repetitive left hand.
That wouldn't have to go anywhere. They say he was one of the first.
A lot of it was attributed to his weight.
# Oh, I'm the winin' boy
# Don't deny my name
# Oh, Mama, Mama
# Won't you look at sis?
# Down on the levee
# Doin' the double twist?
# Oh, I'm the winin' boy
# Don't deny my name #
On would go the record, and they were like companions,
you know, that I was learning from all the time
so, they became my friends, you know.
It was actually quite a solitary thing for me.
I was rather a solitary child.
The piano was a place I sort of got lost in.
And I would just play this, hours and hours and hours.
I just couldn't believe how wonderful it was,
and how wonderful it made me feel.
There's no question about it.
The greatest invention wasn't the skyscrapers, it's that music.
Without a doubt. Nobody had done that before.
People had written symphonies, and carved sculptures,
and painted the odd picture hither and thither,
and Americans did that very well.
But the music - nobody had ever done anything like that before.
That was amazing. Greatest gift to the world, yeah. Mm.
(BOTH PLAY BLUES MUSIC)
You may say, 'It's enough to hear the singers,
why do you want to go and become one?'
Good question.
Don't really have an answer for that...
(TAPS RHYTHMICALLY)
'I do have an answer, actually.'
It's the same beat.
It's the same beat that you put in there,
and it's the same beat you beat with your feet.
'This man is the answer.
Henry Roeland Byrd, better known as Professor Longhair.
Professor because of his unique mastery of rumba-boogie-style piano.
But, like many blues artists, he fell into obscurity,
with the rise of '60s pop.'
You notice I'm beating straight.
'Living out the story of a blues song,
Longhair looked set to end his days working as a janitor,
lost to the music world...
..but, then, something remarkable happened.'
# Wa-oo, wa-ah-ha!
# Ti-ni, no, no
# Tipitana
# Tra-la-la #
'A group of fanatical followers
rolled away the stone and the Professor was born again.
After a gig on the Queen Mary in 1975,
Longhair was rightly enthroned as a legend.
My view of life, in fact my life,
was shaped by the sounds and stories of Professor Longhair.
Without him, I'd have taken up golf,
or lying down in front of trains.
With him, the world was - and is - a fine, fine place.'
# We fired our guns and the British kept a-coming...
'Now, in a humble yet weirdly arrogant act of devotion,
I'm going to play some shows across the US,
starting here in New York and ending in California,
where I'll be paying homage to the Professor aboard the Queen Mary.
# We looked down the river and we see the British come
# And there must've been a hundred of 'em, beating on the drum... #
I realise now, being in New York,
that it is an act of straightforward madness for an Englishman to come here
and try and enchant audiences with American music.
It's madness, but mad things are good.
'New York has always loved the blues.
At the start of the 20th century,
with so many people crammed on top of each other,
dance halls and jazz clubs broke the taboos of the day,
allowing black and white audiences to mix for the first time.
Those audiences couldn't get enough.
These days, they'll even allow Englishmen back in,
but only if accompanied by musical adults.
In may case, it's the Copper Bottom Band.
A gleaming, popping, burbling V8 of an outfit.
All they need is a hat.
Jay Bellerose on drums has played with everyone
from BB King and Bob Dylan to Elton John.
I have down for a homburg.'
If anyone's gonna pull it off, it's you.
'Jay doesn't just play rhythms,
he plays skins, hides, woods, living matter,
and forces you to hear the texture and pulse of things.
He is the heart.
David Piltch is blood - type A.
His basslines course around a song,
feeding muscles, tendons, organs.
Patrick Warren plays organs, which is confusing.
Patrick is the liver.'
Woo!
'Sister Jean McClain is a former disco diva
who's worked with legends like Tina Turner.
She is the soul.
Kevin Breit plays guitars, banjos, mandolins, ukuleles -
anything with strings attached.
Probably puppets and hire purchase agreements too (!)
Vincent Henry plays anything you can blow into,
at least that's what he shows us.
My suspicion is that he can play all the instruments in the band
better than any of us, he's just polite to do it when we're there.'
(PERCUSSIVE RHYTHM)
'Me, I am the digestive tract of the band.'
# I've got a song
# Ain't got no melody
# I'm a-gonna sing it to my friends
# Will it go round in circles?
# Will it fly high, like a bird up in the sky?
# Will it go round in circles?
# Will it fly high like a bird up in the sky?
# Bird up in the sky...
My passion is music - always has been.
Acting is a thing that...
I find it very difficult.
I actually find it very difficult.
Not to say I don't find music difficult.
I sweat and curse over the music too
but it is a much freer and more passionate experience.
# Will it go round in circles?
# Will it fly high like a bird up in the sky?
# Bird up in the sky #
Woo!
I've never been confident of anything.
I predict disaster...
..almost every day.
And, for that reason, I am almost always delighted and relieved
by the way the day turns out.
'Ha! Watch your head.
It's almost like a sign.
New Yorkers have, of course, seen it all before.
A famously tough crowd
and, although few of the blues legends came from here,
this is the city where they have to prove themselves.
It's our first night and this is the lion's mouth.'
# Way down upon the Suwannee River
# Far, far away... #
It's a very exposing thing to do,
to put yourself into music.
It's a way in which people reveal themselves, you can't help it.
Simply by choosing a song - the very act of choosing a song...
Never mind writing one, just choosing an existing one,
you are exposing something of yourself and your taste
and your likes and dislikes.
(BOOGIE WOOGIE-STYLE MUSIC)
(CHEERING)
(WHISTLING)
(CHEERING)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
Hey, everybody. Ready for some moonshine?
'Before we say farewell to the Big Apple,
the band and I visit an old-fashioned speakeasy.'
Cos this stuff is rough.
Well, speaking as a professional tea drinker, well...
'At the height of Prohibition in the 1920s,
the biggest popular singers in America were women
and none was bigger than Bessie Smith.
Sister Jean takes the torch and runs with it.'
# Judge, Judge, please, Mr Judge
# Send me to the 'lectric chair # Bum, oh-oh!
# I wanna see the Devil
# Devil down below
# And I'll kill my man
# I've got to reap what I sow
# Judge, Judge
# Please, lordy, Judge
# Send me to the 'lectric chair # Bum, bum, oh-oh!
# Send me to the 'lectric chair #
(CHEERING)
(LAUGHS)
# All my life, I've been a travelling man... #
'Till a couple of years ago,
playing music was my own private escape.
But now it's given me the chance to see America
in a way I never have before.
To visit some of the places that inspired this wonderful music.'
To be perfectly honest, this whole experience
has been for me a little bit like shoplifting.
Not that I'm experienced, you understand
but, from the moment that I first embarked upon this musical journey,
set out with the band, made a record, started going on tour,
I kept expecting somebody to shout, 'Stop that man!'
For whatever reason, mysteriously, it hasn't happened yet
and I've taken whatever it is that I've stolen from the shop
and put them down the front of my trousers.
I've made for the exit and I seem to now have got into the car park
and I'm still going.
I feel like they're gonna set the dogs on me at any moment,
but it hasn't happened yet and it's an absolutely amazing experience.
'A thousand miles south to New Orleans,
where the young student Longhair scraped a living
as a tap-dancing street hustler.'
# Thought I heard
# Buddy Bolden say... #
'I'm here to meet one man who's proved beyond a doubt
you can play the blues no matter where you're from.
He's a singer, songwriter, and a piano playing genius.
The locals consider him one of their own,
but he is in fact John Cleary from Kent.'
Oh, my God, now, this is just er...
A bit messy? No. This is... This is treasure.
'Over 30 years ago, John moved here as a teenager,
with a couple of hundred quid in his pocket
which he spent on records the day he arrived.
He dreamed of playing with the blues greats.
Along the way, he also became one.'
It was kind of a surprise when I got here,
because there weren't many people playing New Orleans piano.
By default I ended up kind of being
a guy that got called to play with the old cats.
All the gigs, I got to play with all my...
..hero idols who'd just been names on backs of records in those days.
'John has built a recording studio from an old Creole grocery store.
This is where I plan to kill him and steal his identity (!)'
Oh, and this! Yes, like a funky, old broken piano showroom.
(LAUGHS)
(LIVELY JAZZ)
Oh! Oh, my word.
That's kind of what New Orleans music is.
The tension is so gorgeous, that.
I mean, I'm fascinated by Professor Longhair and what he...
the sound he managed to create with a piano.
And where those particular rhythmic things came from.
There's a basic pulse that goes through a lot of New Orleans music
and you hear it even now at Mardi Gras time.
Then it goes back to Africa via Cuba.
It's called a habanera rhythm.
So if you have four beats of a bar, going like this...
You have the synco...
So it's the way you place all the accents against the four.
Right. Syncopation and funk. So that groove...
(HUMS)
You also hear it in...
..rumba - what we call rumba, anyway. Right.
It's not Spanish rumba, it's a different thing.
Then you hear it in, you know...
(JAZZ-TINGED BLUES)
..so you hear that rhythm going through the funk,
into a lot of the old R'n'B stuff. Right.
(SLOW BLUES)
'John's first gig was filling in for James Booker,
when the genius failed to show.
He also played with Dr John, BB King and now -
you can tell how excited he is - he gets to play with me.'
(CHUCKLES)
Wow! To me, it sounds just as fresh. Yeah.
If you play it with some energy and soul, it still sounds fresh. Yeah.
New Orleans comes into fashion, it goes out of fashion.
They don't stop playing here, just cos no-one's looking.
(LAUGHS) Yeah. See what I mean? Exactly.
They've always been doing it here. Yeah.
# Down a road
# Well, came a junco partner, right now #
So the Queen Mary is getting closer.
Well, actually, the Queen Mary is staying where she is,
moored in Long Beach.
I am getting closer to the Queen Mary,
and the day of reckoning.
It will be, I suppose, a combination of many things.
Exciting, thrilling, awe-inspiring, terrifying,
or just a flat-out disaster.
There's no way of knowing.
'While the south may be the birthplace of the blues,
Chicago is where it came when it left home
and got its first job.
100 years ago, when black Americans moved north in large numbers,
the railway line ended here.
Chicago's most famous southern migrant was McKinley Morganfield,
also known as Muddy Waters -
the father of Chicago blues.
He was also the father of Mud Morganfield,
an internationally-celebrated musician in his own right.'
You're not gonna get dressed fancier than that, are you? No.
You're gonna show us up. Just a traditional Chicago blues thing.
(CHUCKLES)
'He's agreed to play with me while I'm in town.
For the life of me, I don't know why.'
Just talk us through it. Yeah.
(INTRODUCTION ON HARMONICA)
'In the 1940s, Muddy Waters surfed the wave of a new-fangled invention.
The electric guitar -
which could be amplified to huge crowds for the first time.
Blues music was never the same again.'
# I'm going out walking
# Walking down to the park
# Yeah
# I'm going out walking
# Walking down to the park
# I'm gonna walk in the moonlight
# Walk till the night gets dark #
Are you hearing enough up there?
(HARMONICA)
I could barely hear you.
You know, that's probably best that way.
(LAUGHTER)
I'm serious... (CHUCKLES)
This is what they all asked for, you see.
'Can you take the piano out of it (?)'
'Chicago is a holy place for musicians
and one of the temples at which they worship
is the Chicago Music Exchange,
where they have the biggest vintage collection in the world.
I've never been much of a collector.
If I was ever going to start...'
Just such a gorgeous looking thing.
This part is the least gorgeous part of it.
Oh, I think I should probably leave my wallet in the car.
I think we have a day off to come here, and drop...
..the ransom (!)
(LAUGHS)
Well, we can help with that. Can you?
Every guitar has a story, has a sound and feels different.
So that's why you've gotta play every one
until you connect with an instrument,
until you're inspired by it.
That's what we do here, we inspire musicians and put the right instruments in their hand,
to continue on with the history, you know.
If you want to apply pressure, sales pressure, that's the place to go.
He's our weak spot.
To be in America is fantastic,
to be playing to an audience back where all these songs came from.
Especially in Chicago, people'll appreciate it - Yeah.
..which is great.
'There are guitars here
that sell for hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Luckily, they do have a budget option.'
Let's get a professional opinion on this.
Yeah, but I never wanna do that though.
(LAUGHS) OK.
How's that?
That's more like it.
See, kids, what's possible if you really apply yourself.
I love it.
Wow! It's beautiful.
It smells nice. (LAUGHTER) No, it does.
That's - that's why I wanted it, is the smell.
I wasn't asking you to play it, I was asking you to smell it.
# Oh, Death
# O-o-o-o-oh
# Death
# Won't you spare me over
# Till another year?
# What is this that I...?
There's an idea people have
that blues music is a very sort of male form,
it's a man and a guitar telling hard-luck stories.
And there is an element of that
but, to my mind, the blues really began with women.
My own theory is that it really comes from lullabies.
# Oh
# O-o-o-o-oh
And, to me, it's always been...
there's been a strong element of the mother singing her baby to sleep.
# Oh, Death
# Won't you spare me over
# Till another year? #
# Love
# Oh, love
# Oh, careless love #
I think of, er...
..Britain and America differing by about 5%...
..in most aspects of human behaviour.
They like their hair 5% neater than we do.
They like 5% more melted cheese on their food.
It's all about 5%.
Until it comes to religion, and then it's 3,000%.
They believe in angels.
The majority of the country believes in angels.
As you all know, in Britain, you've got to work quite hard
to find somebody who believes in angels.
It probably won't be anyone in your street.
Here, you've got to look quite hard
to find someone who doesn't believe in them.
'Yes, God is very busy in America, with offices everywhere
but, if anything was gonna make me believe in angels,
it would be this gin mill turned blues bar in Milwaukee.
80 miles north of Chicago.
Locals comes from miles around to dance the polka
and to hear music at least 5% better than anywhere else.'
If there'd been a bar like this in...in er...
the town where I grew up,
I can't imagine that I ever would have left it.
I was an underground worshipper.
When I was a boy, this was a lonely trail to follow.
All my school friends were listening to er...
David Bowie slash Bough-ee, slash Bow-ey.
You see even that reveals how little I know about pop music.
What I did know about was Sonny Boy Williamson
and James Cotton and Little Walter.
I had nowhere to go and there was no temple where we could all gather.
(WHISTLING)
(CHEERING)
(WHISTLES)
But the main thing is - it's still here.
You know, whether there are five people in the bar, or 50, or 500,
it still keeps going because the people who play it
love it more than life itself.
That's how it sounds to me.
And I find that just...endlessly moving and inspiring.
(WHISTLING)
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
'Well, now it's time to go to work.
This queue isn't for us, by the way.
There's actually a shoe sale on the corner.'
It has become our habit to drink a toast before we do a show.
It's partly superstition and it's partly thirst for alcohol, really.
Alcoholics come up with similar fictions about why they drink.
We are no different.
Bottoms up. Bottoms up.
I get very nervous, so just a little shot of the good stuff helps.
I know I will look back and say, 'What an amazing opportunity.'
When you're in the middle of an amazing opportunity,
you don't really have the time to fully appreciate it.
It's usually, I think, about 10 years later,
you look back and go, 'That wasn't bad, that thing that I did.'
(CHEERING)
'That really was lucky, the way that turned out.'
Good evening.
(CHEERING)
(WHISTLING)
(CHEERING)
(RHYTHMIC APPLAUSE)
# You gotta jump, jump here
# You gotta jump, jump there
# You gotta jump, jump, jump
# Everywhere
# Mellow down easy
# Mellow down easy, if you really wanna blow your top #
(CHEERING)
I do love music.
I do love these songs and I love the people I'm playing them with.
It strikes me as completely communal.
I feel if the band plays it right, I sing it right,
and the audience responds right, then we're all in it together.
The song is living amongst everybody in the room.
# ..nicer when you're feeling good # Oh, Daddy...
It just so happens that we're in the brightly lit bit, playing it,
and they're in the dark bit, listening to it,
but we're all one group of people experiencing the life of a song.
# Come on, baby
# Let the good times roll #
(CHEERING)
Thank you. Woo!
(CHEERING)
These are great shows and I see you dance now.
That is just the best. You're dancing now.
I don't know what happened, tonight. I went a bit...
Yeah. You had fun.
That's why I'm over there yelling.
There was a little bit of amyl nitrate in the air, or something,
but I went a bit...I went a bit strange. (GIGGLES)
(CHEERING)
You get into a tower of power thing and here we go. (LAUGHS)
He ain't got no horn, but he rolling (!)
He rolling! Oh, my God.
(GIGGLES)
(CHEERING)
(WHISTLING)
'We could have used the traditional red line on a map
to show our progress across the continent.
Instead, we use my beard.'
(INSTRUMENTAL BLUES MUSIC)
'We're in California now
but, before my gig on the Queen Mary in honour of Professor Longhair,
I have one last stop to make.'
# I know you told me
# Such a long time ago
'For a final burst of inspiration,
I'm visiting the studio of one of the greatest musicians of all time,
if not THE greatest.
This here is Mount Olympus,
from where Ray Charles dispatched his musical thunderbolts
across the world.'
# Oh, what it makes me be...
'Since his death in 2004, his studio has been kept as a memorial.
President of the Ray Charles Foundation,
Valerie Ervin shows me around.'
# I'm a fool for you #
There was something about Ray Charles that was, er...
..really above and beyond.
I think it was Sinatra who described Ray Charles as
'The only real genius in show business.'
And, to come here...into the room that he actually designed,
and sit at his piano and actually brush against
the marks that his fingernails have left...
Because he played a lot of black keys,
so he got right into the keyboard.
You can see his...
It's slightly unnerving. I feel as if I've broken into a cathedral
and I'm somehow slightly desecrating it just by breathing the air.
# Sweet Sixteen Bars
OK, who taught you how to play like that?
(LAUGHTER)
Sweet Sixteen Bars, which I always thought was such a great title.
He plays that for the 16 bars and he goes round it however many times.
I would never - five hours, two days...
I would never, ever, ever, ever want him to stop.
You took me somewhere, the first time you hit the first bar,
I was like, 'Beautiful!'
It was kind of a touch of him back in here.
You know, so many people come in and play,
but no-one stops in and plays Ray.
No-one.
I should've asked permission. No! (GIGGLES)
I should have played some... I don't know, just er...
When you kind of first hit, I was like, 'Wow!'
That was incredible.
# Georgia #
'Coming from Valerie, that means a lot.
She worked closely with Ray for the last decade of his life.
Now she's in charge of his legacy.'
Is it possible to sit in the chair? Absolutely. Have at it.
He just loved music. Yeah.
When he wasn't on the road, he was in that studio.
We would leave him here. He would lock the building. Wow!
He spent 90% of his time here.
He never rehearsed any show prior, for any show - What?
He didn't believe in rehearsing.
He said, 'If you're musicians, you should know how to play.'
Ray would stop a show, literally in the middle of it and say,
'Third horn from the left, that was the wrong note.'
I've watched him do it. Wow! Live.
And he'll say, 'So sorry, audience. Excuse me, but he didn't get it.
Now let's try that again.'
We don't do this any more. (LAUGHS)
It's like cars without seat belts.
Dangerous. It's out, is it? Is it?
Be careful.
No, who am I gonna be correcting? I'm gonna be correcting myself.
Yeah.
# Hit The Road, Jack
'At the risk of looking like Spinal Tap at Graceland,
I decided that we just had to try a Ray Charles classic...'
# No woman who can treat me so mean
# You're the meanest old woman...
'Sung by new recruit to the band, Lionel Messi.
I'm sorry - Gaby Moreno.'
# That's right! Hit the road, Jack
# Don't you come back no more, No more, no more, no more
# Hit the road, Jack, Don't you come back no more
# Well, baby, listen, baby, to what I say
# I'll be back on my feet some day
# Don't care if you do, cos it's understood
# You ain't got no money, you ain't no good
# Hit the road, Jack
# Don't you come back no more, No more, no more, no more
# Hit the road, Jack
# Don't you come back no more...
When he told me...the songs that I was gonna be singing,
I couldn't believe it.
These are some of my favourite songs,
that I've been singing since I was little.
Really, they've been a huge influence on my singing,
on my music, on my writing, everything.
# Don't you come back no more, Don't you come back no more
# Don't you come back no more
# Don't you come back, # Don't you come back
# Don't you come back no more
# Oo-oo-ooh! #
Sweet.
'The Queen Mary has been moored in Long Beach
since her last transatlantic journey in the late-1960s.
I can still remember the horror that greeted her sale to the Yanks
but, the truth is, they've looked after the old girl a treat.
You can see your face in her.'
'Professor Longhair's performance here in 1975
virtually defined his career,
catapulting him once again into the limelight.
And, since I heard a recording of that gig, my life changed too.
It's the first time I've ever been on this ship
and, finally arriving here,
suddenly makes the whole endeavour become that much more real.'
This feels like a very holy place, and a holy undertaking.
And, er...
..I'm crapping myself.
'And, if things weren't bad enough,
the poet, philanthropist and ex-Millwall central defender
Stephen Fry has dropped in to watch us rehearse.'
# Lord have mercy, if you please #
Professor Shiny-Scalp.
(LAUGHTER)
I've only lately discovered that Professor Longhair wasn't the only professor.
There were four professors. There was Professor Longhair,
Professor Some-Hair, Professor Losing-His-Hair and...
(LAUGHTER) ..Professor Never-Had-Any-Hair.
The BBC asked Hugh and me if we would do a TV series together.
We called it A Bit Of Fry And Laurie.
One of the things we puzzled over was the opening music.
And Hugh said, 'You know Professor Longhair...'
And I thought, 'Is that a cartoon character?
I've never heard of Professor Longhair.'
I said, 'No, I don't know Professor Longhair.'
He said, 'He played this live on the Queen Mary.'
It was this extraordinary... I think it's called Mardi Gras.
It's a very New Orleans kind of name, with a...
(WHISTLES) ..kind of whistle in it.
It just was a perfect introduction to a comedy show.
(WHISTLES)
So I'm certainly proud of him but, at the same time,
I'm fully aware of the amount of work he puts in.
I've known Hugh for over 30 years.
There hasn't been - almost hasn't been a day -
he might have been on a ship where he hasn't played the piano,
where he hasn't practised, he hasn't got better and better.
'Well, there goes the carefree amateur facade.'
Moment of truth approaches.
Tense times. Tense times.
Getting very close will be the pitter-patter of feet
as the audience goes in.
Whatever happens, good or bad,
it's...it's been quite an adventure.
'For tonight's show, the drummer's hat is being worn by
the mighty Herman Matthews - seven-and-five-eighths.'
'If you'd told me 40 years ago that, one day,
I would be standing in the ballroom of the Queen Mary wearing a Richard Chamberlain shirt,
paying my respects to Professor Longhair...
Well, I wouldn't have believed you then
and I'm not completely sure I believe it now.'
(CHEERING)
(LAUGHTER)
So far, so good. Thank you all for coming.
Welcome on board the Queen Mary.
Current show business advice is
that you should not burst into tears in the first 30 seconds.
(LAUGHTER) But my presence here - our presence on board the ship -
your presence here, is a very powerful and emotional one for me,
which I will get to later.
(CHEERING)
'This is Junco Partner, a New Orleans staple.
It's a happy song about heroin and hard time.'
# Way down the road
# Came a junco partner
# He was loaded as can be
# He was knocked out
# Knocked out and loaded
# But he was singing
# This song to me
# Well, he said, 'Six months?
# That ain't no sentence!'
# He said, 'One year? That ain't no time!'
# I've known boys
# Boys in Angola
# They went one year out of 99 #
(CHEERING)
It's just incredible
that I have been given a chance to play with these amazing musicians.
Thanks to them, I am loving this,
and thank you for coming and being a part of what is, to me,
an incredibly important and special evening.
I thank you very much.
'It seems only fitting, after all of this,
to play a song by Professor Longhair -
maybe his most famous song: Tipitina.'
# Why don't you hurry
# Little Loberta? # Little Loberta!
# You got company
# Waiting at home # Waiting at home
# Why don't you hurry, Little Loberta?
# Don't you leave that boy alone
# Yeah, Tipitina # Tipitina
# Tee-nay-mama! # Tee-nay-mama!
# Tipitina # Tipitina
# Tee-nah-nah! # Tee-nah-nah!
# Tipitina, Oom, walla, walla, dolla
# Tipitina, tee-nah-nah!
# Oh
# Ooooh # Oh! #
(CHEERING) Thank you.
(CHEERING)
Thank you very much. Thank you.
'The truth is, this hasn't been a journey.
I mean, I've physically moved,
but my heart has always been here.
This is the music I've always loved and the music I always will love.'
# Everyone is facing changes
# No-one knows what's going on...
'I don't believe in angels, not one bit,
but I do believe in the power of this music to connect people
to each other, to the world, to the heavens.
# Still the world keeps moving on #
This is my religion and I hope to see you in church.'
Subtitles by Deluxe