Fresh Loaf

In some ways, Oliver Morgan was like many of the other evacuees from Hurricane Katrina. Floodwaters from the levee breach in the Industrial Canal engulfed his Lower Ninth Ward home, and so he and his wife, Sylvia, went to stay in Atlanta where two of his five children lived. To Atlantans, he may have been just another evacuee who decided to make the city his new home. They even bought a house.

To New Orleans, he was better-known for his lone but huge 1964 R&B hit, “Who Shot the La La,” a curious take on the then-recent death of another New Orleans R&B star, Lawrence “Prince La La” Nelson. (Nelson actually died of a drug overdose, not a gunshot wound, but the song turns the death into a mystery.) Morgan himself passed away July 31 at the age of 74.

Morgan never matched the success of “Who Shot the La La,” a jaunty, syncopated tune filled with loads of local references but with a melody so catchy it became a favorite during Mardi Gras. He also became a fixture at Jazz Fest, often parading around in the New Orleans “second line” style, waving an umbrella and leading the crowd in a line.

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