Professor Longhair

Definitive versions of the definitive New Orleans blues piano giant's repertoire, New Orleans Piano features the easy brilliance of Professor Longhair's playing and singing captured with all the warmth of music from the '50s, eternally marked by the perfectly muffled recording techniques of the time. The whistling intro to "Mardi Gras in New Orleans" and the mid-tempo barrelhouse roll of "Tipitina" alone are bedrock moments in American music, but everything on this collection of early Atlantic singles and alternate takes (all from either 1949 or 1953) is must hear.