HENRY BUTLER R.I.P.

I met Henry Butler, the great New Orleans piano player, at a Hollywood party, I think in the early 1980s but my memory isn't always correct these days. One or the other of us had sat down at the piano and started playing and then the other played and then we talked for hours.

He gave me his card and asked me to call him as he was staying around L.A. for a while, so I did and we hung out and played and talked and shared our life stories and all that good friendship stuff until he left town. (I think I still have the card somewhere.)

Over the next several years we talked on the phone and I saw him when he was back in L.A. for gigs. But I lost touch sometime later and hadn't spoken to him in years, then heard today that he'd passed on yesterday. Henry was one of the most unique piano players and human beings I've ever known (he was blind almost from birth, but was a photographer as well as a pianist!). He will be greatly missed.

[here's his obituary from the New Orleans paper]