Remembering ‘The Wildest’: Louis Prima
A life-sized statue of Louis Prima stands inside Musical Legends Park in New Orleans, Prima’s home town. On his tombstone is inscribed, “Life goes on without me,” a lyric from one of his most popular medleys, “Just A Gigolo/I Ain’t Got Nobody.”
Many music fans don’t realize that when they listen to David Lee Roth’s 1985 version of the medley, they hear a note-for-note copy of Prima’s 1956 recording. The arrangement of the two standards was written by Prima sideman Sam Butera, who was furious because he was never compensated by Roth. Butera was angry with good reason; Louis Prima’s take remains the classic version despite the huge success of Roth’s version.
Though many people think it is one song, “Just a Gigolo” and “I Ain’t Got Nobody” are two unrelated tunes written many years before Butera paired them for Prima’s Las Vegas stage act. Columnist Mark Steyn writes that composer Leonello Casucci and lyricist Julius Brammer scored a hit in 1928 Austria with “Schöner Gigolo,” or “Beautiful Gigolo,” a tale of a soldier after World War I forced to make a living selling dances to lonely women.
Composer Irving Caesar was hired to pen a version for the American market. Caesar moved the war hero to a café in Paris, where he told women, “If you admire me, please hire me.”
