By Dean M. Shapiro
When Neil Pellegrin was in his early
teens he went to his first record show at
a hotel in Metairie and he impressed the
middle-aged male vendor sitting behind a
record-strewn table by being a fan of rhythm
and blues music from the 1950s and 1960s:
songs that were recorded many years before
he was born.
Today, 20 years later, as the host of the
Tuesday night “’50s R&B Show” on New
Orleans public radio station WWOZ,
Neil fondly recalled his first meeting with
the man who would become his mentor
and close friend - “Jivin’ Gene” Mark, a
longtime, now-retired oldies deejay at the
same station.
“I was just getting into this music and
looking at various vendors at the show
and Gene had a table full of 45s that were
labeled R&B,” Neil explained. “So I bought
a few 45s from him and he told me about
his show on ‘OZ and I started tuning in to
it. I also found out he lived just down the
street from me in Gretna and he invited me
to come over to see his record collection.”
Continuing, Neil said, “Gene took an
interest in somebody my age having an
interest in that kind of music. He invited me
to bring some of my 45s up to his show and
he played them on the air. We were still in
Louis Armstrong Park at the time. I started
hanging out at the station and he put me
on the mike after a while and eventually, he
let me co-host with him. There was a big
generation gap between us but we were
both into the same kind of music.”
Now, two decades after that fortuitous
meeting and five years after Jivin’ Gene’s
retirement, Neil is a still-young 35 and
flying solo on WWOZ every Tuesday from
7-10 p.m. And, judging from the call-ins and
fan email he receives, the show is proving to
be very popular among its listeners.
Specializing in vintage New Orleans
Back to the ‘50s
Neil
Pellegrin
Spins
Vintage R&B
on WWOZ and Live
PHOTOGRAPHY BY RYAN HODGSON-RIGSBEE
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