Herb Hardesty may be best remembered for his half-century of performing in the studio and in concert with Fats Domino, but many music lovers first heard his melodic tones on Lloyd Price’s “Lawdy Miss Clawdy.” It was clearly a rhythm and blues song, but you could hear shades of jazz in Hardesty’s brief solo.
That sound and tone was given greater exhibition with Domino and you can find a few of his extended solos on YouTube.
Hardesty and Domino were linked inseparably almost from the beginning of their careers, when Domino was the pianist on Price’s recording “Lawdy Miss Clawdy” in 1952 for Specialty Records. The two had actually began working together in 1949 on Domino’s first recording, “The Fat Man.” At that time, Hardesty was a member of Dave Bartholomew’s band (Bartholomew would co-write and produce many of Domino’s hits) and he was not that familiar with Domino. He thought the recording date was for a popular radio show, “The Fat Man.”
By 1953, the recording had sold a million copies and is reputed to have been the first rock and roll record to reach this plateau. Later, in liner notes to a Domino anthology, “They Call Me the Fat Man,” Hardesty recounted the early years with Domino. “I spent many hours in the studio helping build up Fats’ repertoire,” Hardesty said. “His record sales were great, and the singles almost always made the charts, proving Fats and Dave to be a magical combination.”
To list their hits—“Ain’t That a Shame,” “I’m Walkin,’” “My Blue Heaven,” “Blue Monday,” et al—with Hardesty in the horn section is to chronicle the early years of rock and roll. It should be noted that his solo on “Blue Monday” was done on baritone saxophone, and that would be the only time he used it on a recording. One music authority said, “[His solo] is as close to perfection as one can imagine. The eight-bar sax break is a gem of almost frightening economy. It is one of the most memorable, bluesy and yet simple runs in all of R&B.”
Born Herbert Hardesty March 3, 1925, in New Orleans, he caught music fever watching the bands that promenaded by his house in the 12th Ward. At the age of 6 he began playing a trumpet that once belonged to Louis Armstrong, and he was still in elementary school when he began performing in public at a local movie theater. It was during one of the engagements when someone gave him a shot of moonshine whiskey. “Boom!” he recalled, “I get up to take a solo and fell back onto the screen.”
Despite his musical background and skill, he was a radio technician in the U. S. Army during World War II while serving in Morocco, Italy and Germany, as a member of the famed Tuskegee Airmen. When he returned home from the service (he had begun playing and studying the saxophone in the Army) he began playing saxophones in earnest, quickly acquiring a reputation that made him a studio musician in demand. There was also a brief stint as a student at Dillard University.
When Domino’s band began to gain traction, Hardesty’s tenor sax was usually the first soloist on recordings and at concert dates. His lush tonal quality and smooth syncopation often contrasted with Domino’s boogie-woogie beat, although he was capable of rollicking, blistering licks with a flair for showmanship and was able to create that surging beat that typifies New Orleans honky-tonk music.
Many compared his sound and approach to some of the great jazz saxophonists of the day and wondered why he wasn’t a member of some of the great bands of the day, such as those of Count Basie and Duke Ellington, although he did perform with them on brief engagements. In 1959, he did a recording date with jazz pianist Hank Jones but largely went unnoticed.
Hardesty was obviously quite content to be with Domino. However, there were other recording dates, with such singers as Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Ella Fitzgerald and, most explosively, with Little Richard. He accompanied singer/pianist Tom Waits on his album “Blue Valentine,” and subsequently toured with him in 1978 and 1979. On this tour, which included trips across Europe and Australia, he played both trumpet and tenor sax.
When he wasn’t in the studio with others or with Domino, Hardesty had his own recording dates, and several of them included songs composed by his son, Michael. According to several websites, he released a half dozen 45-rpm records under his name, but it was not until 2012 that a CD of his recordings was issued. It was called, quite appropriately, “The Domino Effect.”
During his many years with Domino, it was his duty to drive the band to the engagements in a bus or station wagon. Domino usually traveled separately in his Cadillac. There were several harrowing incidents in which they were stopped by the Ku Klux Klan, but once KKK knew who they were, they were allowed to continue to their gig.
Always impeccably dressed with a suave demeanor, Hardesty’s comportment was never less than professional. Most often he possessed a no-nonsense style that was respectful and considered, a similar feeling he emitted from his horn. “When you play,” he told a reporter, “play what’s in your heart, what’s in your mind, not what somebody else plays. You have to be yourself.”
Right down to his retirement and his relocation to Las Vegas in the 1970s, he maintained that attitude. In and around Nevada, he was part of a quintet performing in various schools. He still enjoyed returning to New Orleans to perform with Dr. John at the annual Jazz & Heritage Festival. “All hail Herb Hardesty, one of the few remaining alums of the J&M Studio Band whose talents helped create so many hits and classic songs for Fats Domino, Little Richard, Shirley and Lee, and so many others,” a music magazine exclaimed. “His presence and fine soloing in Dr. John’s sets this Jazz Fest added to the New Orleans feel in Dr. John’s new songs.”
Hardesty died Dec. 3, 2016, and according to the Rhodes Funeral Home in New Orleans, cancer was the cause of death.