Talk:Pete Fountain
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 |
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography. For more information, visit the project page. | ||
| ??? | This article has not yet received a rating on the project's quality scale. [FAQ]
Please rate the article and, if you wish, leave comments here regarding your assessment or the strengths and weaknesses of the article. |
||
|
|
Pete Fountain is within the scope of the WikiProject New Orleans, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to New Orleans and the Greater New Orleans area on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. |
| Start | This article has been rated as Start-Class on the quality scale. |
| Mid | This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale. |
|
Looking to help? Check out the New Orleans To-do List:
|
|
I reverted User:24.114.144.60's replacement of the article with an unwikified essay. A google search of a few phrases didn't catch any matches, so it might be original, or a text dump from a print souce. Until there's some clarification, I moved it here to talk. -- Infrogmation 07:20, 12 Apr 2005 (UTC)
On July 3rd 1930, in New Orleans, Peter Fountain was born. His father was able to play many instruments by ear and was the person in Pete’s life who exposed him to jazz music early in his childhood. When Pete was 9 years old, he was introduced to the clarinet when a physician suggested he play it to improve his weak lung strength. He took lessons and listened to music by his idols: Benny Goodman and Irving Fazola. He liked trying to imitate their playing style.
As a few years passed by, Pete’s playing skills became better and better. He played in his high school band, and whenever he could; he would sneak into music clubs and listen to performances. When he was 16 he formed his first band and they were honored by an opportunity to play at The Parisian Room, a famous jazz spot in New Orleans. In 1950, then 20 years old, he founded the Basin Street Six, a Dixieland comic band. However, at this time everybody was into Bebop and the band found it difficult booking work. In 1951, he got married to Beverly Ann Lang and they had three children together. The band eventually broke up and Pete and his family moved to Memphis and Chicago with a new group, the Three Coins.
The move from New Orleans hit Fountain pretty hard, leaving him rather homesick, when all of a sudden in 1956, Lawrence Welk, impressed with some recordings he heard of him, asked Fountain if he wanted to join his national TV show, produced in California. Pete accepted. He received hundreds of fan mails a week, his popularity growing. They even played at Carnegie Hall, but his family still missed New Orleans. In 1959 they moved back to their hometown, New Orleans.
That same year, Peter signed his first two records with Coral Records “Pete Fountain’s New Orleans” and “The Blues”, which sold quite well. In 1960 he founded his very own jazz club “The French Quarter Inn” which became a very popular place in New Orleans. Seven years after, in 1967, he founded “Pete’s Place” at Bourbon Street, but then relocated to a 500-seat room in the New Orleans Hilton. In 1972 he wrote his autobiography about his life and career, called “Just a Closer Walk With Thee”.
To this day Peter Fountain still lives in New Orleans and performs every so often at the Hilton and intends to for years to come.
