Louis Prima never seemed to play a song so much as throw a party. It was a style he came by naturally, growing up among the Sicilian families, brass bands, and jazz funerals of New Orleans, with the sound of Louis Armstrong’s trumpet ringing in his ears. By the 1930s, Prima had taken that New Orleans spirit to the nightclubs of New York’s 52nd Street. He blew his horn, cracked jokes, worked the crowd, and wrote a song called “Sing, Sing, Sing” that would become one of the defining hits of the swing era.
But Prima had plenty more music in him. He proudly celebrated his Italian-American roots during World War II, found a whole new audience in Las Vegas alongside Keely Smith and Sam Butera, and eventually became the unforgettable voice of King Louie in The Jungle Book. Our own Greg Hengler shares the life story of a man who spent five decades making America laugh, sing, and dance.
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