“I was once asked, if I was ever elected president, who would I hire to play my at inauguration. My immediate answer was Ernie K-Doe. This perceptive, simpatico book … explains all my reasons why.”
—James Carville, political commentator and professor of political science, Tulane University

“I’m cocky but I’m good!”
—Ernie K-Doe

“I love this book. Ben Sandmel has captured and conveyed the loopy genius, linguistic and musical, that was Ernie K-Doe, self-anointed Emperor of the Universe, and a character par excellence in a city full of larger-than-life characters. Ernie K-Doe put them all in the shade, and Ben Sandmel tells you how. The prose is lively, the quotations generous, the photos and graphics spectacular. This is one of the five essential books on New Orleans culture. You gotta get it.”
—Eric Overmyer, cocreator of HBO’s Treme

“On the second month, the twenty-second day, nineteen and thirty-six, eight-fifteen in the morning time, Charity Hospital went to rumblin’ and a-grumblin’! The building started to bendin’, the walls started shakin’, and the doctors said, ‘What’s wrong? What’s happening?’ The people told them doctors, ‘A boy-child is being born on the third floor, at this particular time!’ And I believe about that time the doctor had done finished what he had to do, and the nurses had done washed this beautiful body of mines down and brought it to my mother, and I believe my mother looked up at my father and said, ‘Huh! What we gonna name the boy this morning?’ And my father looked down at my mother and said, ‘Hush! You can’t name him nothin’ but one thing, that’s Ernie K-Doe Jr., and he’s gonna be a bad motor scooter!’”
—Ernie K-Doe

“Ben Sandmel tells K-Doe’s story for real here, plus the stories of lots of other cats that I knew and gigged with and loved. This is a very cool book.”
—Mac Rebennack (Dr. John), Grammy-winning musician and songwriter and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee

“What you need to know about Ernie K-Doe is that I got some cockiness I can lend to someone else. You only as strong as you want to be.…I never said ‘No,’ I never said the words ‘I can’t.’ You never know what you can do until you try it, so try it and then you will know.”
—Ernie K-Doe

“Ernie K-Doe was a star at all times! He was always ready for the lights to come on and the audience to roar whether there was an audience or not. There was no stopping the man. Ben Sandmel has done his homework on K-Doe and brought that to life in this book. Burn, K-Doe, burn!”
—Allen Toussaint, producer, songwriter, and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee

“I’m so bad I got to pinch myself in the morning to see if I’m still alive!”
—Ernie K-Doe

“Ben Sandmel tells Ernie K-Doe’s tale with respect and sensitivity, scholarly research, a musician’s inside understanding, and considerable wit. A compelling, lively and well-written look at the irresistible music and street culture of New Orleans, as performed and lived by one of its most memorable talents.”
—Tavis Smiley, broadcaster, philanthropist, and author of the best-seller What I Know for Sure: My Story of Growing Up in America

“I’m so slick grease gotta come ask me how to be greasy!”
—Ernie K-Doe

“A serious good time. Ben Sandmel gets under the spell of the Emperor of the World and explains the who and the what of the unique New Orleans entertainment spectacle that was Ernie K-Doe. Foot-tapping reading.”
—Harry Shearer, humorist and host of public radio’s Le Show

“James Brown got all his steps from me!”
—Ernie K-Doe

“When Ernie K-Doe was lying in state at Gallier Hall in New Orleans, just before his boisterous jazz funeral parade, I noticed that K-Doe’s Jheri curls were almost identical to the hairdo of the French explorer LaSalle, whose portrait hung near the casket. The similarity is provocative, because Ernie K-Doe was a cultural explorer and a creator for the ages—New Orleans style. This riotous and righteous book … celebrates and elevates the details of K-Doe’s improbable saga in a manner befitting the self-proclaimed Emperor of the World.”
—Nick Spitzer, host and producer of radio’s American Routes and Tulane University folklorist

“They’re fixin’ to put my picture on a box of Wheaties!”
—Ernie K-Doe

“Ben Sandmel’s clear-eyed portrait of Ernie K-Doe is a well-written reminder that, in the world of New Orleans entertainment, a splash of the unabashed is essential.”
—Rodney Crowell, Grammy-winning musician and songwriter, author of Chinaberry Sidewalks

“I’m ready to accept the Nobel Prize!”
—Ernie K-Doe

“A biography that’s long overdue. Ernie K-Doe sang New Orleans R&B at its best, and this fine book brings back happy memories from the years when I lived in Louisiana. Ben Sandmel’s writing will make you feel K-Doe’s spirit.”
—Lucinda Williams, Grammy-winning musician and songwriter

“A lively and fascinating journey through the life, career, and music of New Orleans’s most flamboyant 1960s R&B artist. … A must read for fans of R&B and the musical and cultural history of New Orleans.
—Portia K. Maultsby, director of the Archives of African American Music and Culture and Laura Boulton Professor of Ethnomusicology, Indiana University

“Ernie K-Doe was R&B’s greatest megalomaniac. Wherever he is now, he is lucky to have a biographer as diligent, caring, and comprehensive as Ben Sandmel.”
—Neil Strauss, author of the best-seller Everyone Loves You When You’re Dead: Journeys into Fame and Madness