A report from the West Coast by Joe McEwen

Singer Sonny Green is the show tonight. He’s the focus and driving wheel behind the buoyant energy flowing through La Louisianne, a Los Angeles restaurant/lounge in the Crenshaw District. Sonny Green is at ease being the man.

Sonny’s singing style comes from the vocabulary of Bobby Bland and inhabits the gravel end of Bland’s voice. He sings slow, easy soul songs that tell a story, he is an interpreter of the hits of his contemporaries: Johnnie Taylor, Bobby Womack, his late friend ZZ Hill and, of course, the just-deceased master Bobby Bland. The sixty or so people around the bandstand know the words and happily sing chorus after chorus, led by the ever-engaging ringmaster. “That’s the Way I feel About ‘Cha,” “Running Out of Lies,” “Stop Doggin’ Me Around” (“That’s d-o-g-g-i-n”) roll off the tongues of the assembled, as Green strolls the floor, dancing, jiving and collecting tips.

Familiar faces are introduced; Dancing Ann, Huey the guitar legend, and all the women “in the house tonight” born under the sign of Cancer. Also brought forth are Hank Carbo and the sharply dressed man, Ed Wheeler, who owns the place and gets his own time in the spotlight singing an impassioned, heartfelt “The Things That I Used To Do." Everybody seems familiar. The place is alive., and the songs suddenly breathe a life much different from the records. They become a vehicle for a particular and comforting emotional grounding. The audience and performer, transplanted from the Deep South (posed as a question by Sonny with a predetermined answer) to Los Angeles have become one.

Many years ago, the great soul DJ, the Magnificent Montague, responded during a taped repartee with Sam Cooke: ” I see tonight you’re trying to gather some material for your soul, through mine.“ Those of us in the audience on a recent Monday night at La Louisianne did just that through Sonny Green. And at show’s close, we wandered off into the night, so much the better for it.