Lee Dorsey: Working in the Coal Mine and Living in the Crescent City

Working in the Coal Mine and Living in the Crescent City

Irving Lee Dorsey was born on Christmas Eve, 1924, in New Orleans — a childhood friend of Fats Domino, which tells you exactly what neighborhood and what era we're talking about. He moved to Portland, Oregon, at age ten, served in the Navy during World War II, and even tried boxing as a featherweight under the name "Kid Chocolate." The boxing didn't take. The music did.

Dorsey returned to New Orleans and fell into the orbit of Allen Toussaint, the producer and songwriter who was quietly building the city's modern R&B sound. With Toussaint arranging and the Meters providing the groove, Dorsey released "Ya Ya" in 1961, which hit number seven on the Billboard Hot 100 and went gold. It was catchy, funky, and unmistakably New Orleans — the kind of song that made you move before you even decided to.

The Coal Mine and Beyond

"Working in the Coal Mine" in 1966 became Dorsey's biggest pop hit and the song that defined his career. It's one of those records that sounds effortless — a two-minute burst of rhythm and melody that took Toussaint's genius and Dorsey's easy vocal style and turned them into something the whole country could dance to. "Ride Your Pony" and "Holy Cow" followed, each one a perfectly constructed New Orleans R&B single.

The Toussaint-Dorsey collaboration produced some of the finest music to come out of the city in the 1960s. The album Yes We Can in 1970 showed that Dorsey could grow with the times, incorporating soul and funk while keeping that New Orleans foundation intact.

Kid Chocolate to the End

Dorsey kept performing through the 1970s and into the 1980s, opening for acts as varied as the Clash and James Brown. He developed emphysema and died on December 1, 1986, in New Orleans, at sixty-one. He never became as famous as his childhood friend Fats, but with Toussaint behind him and the Meters underneath him, Lee Dorsey made records that still sound like the best possible version of New Orleans — loose, funky, and impossible not to love.