Oct 2 2025
Roger Lewis eldest son, nicknamed Bobee, a U.S. Marine Corps trainee AND a student of the Saxophone in New Orleans, passed away due to sudden and incurable bone-cancer, age 22, in 1982 … just as Roger and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band were rising to their soon-to-come Worldwide Recognition.
Roger and the DDBB included his “Song For Bobe” in their 1990 album for Columbia/SONY, New Orleans. You can hear that Track here.
Roger told me the story of this son as we explored ideas for what would become his 2022 début album, ALRIGHT! . I wrote Lyrics to what I heard.
August 1, 2021, Roger, KIRK JOSEPH, HERLIN RILEY, and I recored several of the Tracks that would go onto ALRIGHT!
As we listened on that of course sultry (August in New Orleans!) afternoon in Rick G. Nelson’s Marigny Recording Studio to Playback of our “Bobee (What A Spirit Walks That Way”, with Herlin’s Drums-Set intro beggaring belief that one drummer would play so much, such contrasting but compatible rhythms, at one time, and the whole group’s inspired propulsion within the repeated two Stanzas, Herlin uttered a kind of ululating song while standing beside my rest on the Control-Home’s main couch.
“You should add that,” I said.
“That? What?” he said,
“What you’re singing. Uttering. Whatever it is, it sounds just right! It’s very affecting!”
Herlin’s vocal to Kirk’s Sousaphone bass-line and Roger’s combination of Saxophones and my Vocal of the Lyrics takes EVERYTHING into the Transcendent, I think. The whole makes for, I think, a African/New Orleans Mourning Song that’s also a Celebration.
This month, preparing to put this Track and Roger’s Instrumental of “Little Things” (he plays Piano and Alto Saxophone) up to worldwide listeners through the PlayMPE platform, I felt more than ever the SYMPATHETIC IDENTIFICAITON that went especially into this Track during that day of inspired performance. Herlin is a 1957 birth and Kirk 1961. Thus they were near Bobee’s age and must have known both him and how the son’s loss hit Roger. So I tried this past week to engage as fully as I could in the Fine-Tooth-Comber process of adjusting Volumes second-by-second for the optimal “Blend”, as KIDD JORDAN used to say, between performers. It took me AWAY.
Bobee (What A Spirit Walks That Way!)
Bobee walks with eyes straight ahead
Bobee walks with his chin thrust out
Bobee shines like orbs and buttons of brass
Bobee is a lad goin’ to earn to his way
What a lyric is that boy
What a man came home from the Corps
What a son plays secrets like his Dad
What a spirit walks that way
Ba-ah-ah-bo-bee
Ba-ah-ah-Ah-Bo-bee!
January 18, 2020
