Tipitina

"Tipitina"
Single by Professor Longhair
B-side	"In The Night"
Recorded	1953
Genre	Blues
Length	2:39
Label	Atlantic Records
Writer(s)	Roy Byrd

"Tipitina" is a song written and made famous by Professor Longhair. The song has been widely covered, and the Professor Longhair version was recorded in 1953 for Atlantic Records. "Tipitina" was first released in 1953 and rereleased on the album New Orleans Piano in 1972. The song, which is considered a New Orleans music standard, was added to the US National Recording Registry in 2011 because of its cultural significance. The subject of "Tipitina" is unknown. The New Orleans music venue, Tipitina's, was named for the song, and Tipitina's Foundation bears the Tipitina name.

Pianist Henry Roeland "Roy" Byrd, known as Professor Longhair, was a prominent New Orleans musician. He played syncopated music that combined blues, ragtime, zydeco, rhumba, mambo and calypso. His singing was characterized as hoarse. His peripatetic recording career began in 1949 with "Mardi Gras In New Orleans" and "She's Got No Hair" with a group credited as "Longhair and his Shuffling Hungarians." A year later at Mercury Records and Roy Byrd & his Blues Jumpers rerecorded "She's Got No Hair" as "Bald Head", which broke through as his only national R&B hit. In 1953, at Atlantic Records, he recorded "Tipitina", which is now regarded as his "signature song".

The melody is derived from Champion Jack Dupree's "Junker's Blues".Rolling Stone described the song as a "rhumba-style track" that has become a quintessential New Orleans standard. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which inducted Longhair in 1992, "The hum-along nonsense syllables and stutter stepping left-hand rhythm of 'Tiptina' is both a symbol and staple of New Orleans music."

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Wikipedia