March, 2021
MP: The first thing that came to mind was when you asked about a stand-out memory was the day Coco Robicheaux died at the Apple Barrel. I was playing. Was I at 30/90 or was I at Three Muses? One of those places. We come out on our break, and we see that the ambulance was there, and some people walk by and say it was Coco Robicheaux. And then word spread so quickly.
That’s how word spread among the musicians. And that was one of those moments where all the musicians that were there, we just kind of… it’s hard to describe. I can honestly say that was one of the most memorable moments, one of the saddest; a timeline moment on Frenchmen. And it just–well, in a way there was no better place for him to go than at the bar at the Apple Barrel, you know? The only better place would have been on the bench outside the Apple Barrel.
Another hard one was Ready Teddy. He was the one who would get a chair and stand on his head, and that was his schtick. And unfortunately, he got into an accident and broke his neck, and he was paralyzed for a couple years before he passed. Everybody thought that he did it in performance, but no, he was just hanging out a bar, and somebody said something and he laughed, and because he had a cold or something, he was really congested, and he started laughing and fell off the bench and hit a pillar. That’s what caused his paralysis.
That was one of those urban legends: if you ask most people who knew about Ready Teddy and ask them how he got paralyzed…”
[HKB: “He was standing on his head.”]
MP: Right, nope–everybody thought he was going to go out that way.
[Stay tuned for full-length interview!]
