Donald's Encyclopedia of Popular Music

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K-DOE, Ernie and Antoinette

(b Ernest Kador Jr, 22 February 1936, New Orleans; d 5 July 2001) R&B singer. He sang with gospel groups, then the Moonglows, the Flamingos, then back in New Orleans with the Blue Diamonds, which became a popular local act and recorded for Savoy. He made solo records on Specialty, Herald, then Minit; 'Hello My Lover' was a regional hit '59, then 'Mother-in-Law', produced by Allen Toussaint, was no. 1 in 1961 on both R&B and pop charts. It was an amusing novelty, with Benny Spellman's bass refrain and Toussaint's piano, but it was also more than that: a fine example of good-humoured, laid-back New Orleans R&B. (Spellman had a Hot 100 entry at no. 80 with 'Lipstick Traces' the next year.) K-Doe had become a first-class entertainer, and after a handful of lesser hits he remained a popular local act. He liked to call himself the Emperor of the Universe, and was famous for his flamboyant costumes.

By 1990 or so K-Doe was a near-derelect alcoholic. Then he met Antoinette Dorsey, a cousin of the singer Lee Dorsey. She had been married once, never had any children of her own but had fostered quite a few, and decided to make something out of Ernie K-Doe. She sobered him up, and in the mid-1990s they opened the Mother-in-Law Lounge in New Orleans, which became a hangout for everybody from elderly black couples to blue-rinsed ladies from the suburbs. Ernie and Antoinette got married in the club and lived upstairs.

After K-Doe died, Miss Antoinette (Netty to her friends) had a statue of him made out of a department-store mannequin and dressed it in his performing outfits, which included Louis XIV wigs. After Hurricane Katrina in 2005 she stayed put, keeping the looters out with a shotgun; the club was badly damaged, but she revived it and continued to run it as a shrine to K-Doe, a soup kitchen and a meeting place, helping local musicians. She had revived the Baby Dolls, a traditional marching group in Baby Snooks costumes that took part in Mardi Gras, but had dwindled to a single, elderly Baby Doll. Her bustling, gregarious personality helped to revive the Tremé neighborhood. She died in the club early on 24 February 2009, aged 66, but the club stayed open and the Baby Dolls marched that day. She wouldn't have had it any other way.