Coco Robicheaux

Louisiana bluesman Coco Robicheaux knew the blues both through his music and through personal hardship. By age 13 he was already leading his own band, and two years later he took the stage on Bourbon Street; around 18 he signed his first record contract. Those early steps suggested an easy path, yet hardship soon intervened when a car accident fractured his back. Without health coverage he landed in a charity hospital, where he endured more than a day of agony in an emergency room next to a gunshot victim. The ordeal exposed him directly to the struggles faced by many without affordable medical care and deepened his determination to assist others facing the same barriers.

He volunteered as one of several contributors to the benefit album Get You a Healin', created to support the New Orleans Musicians' Clinic inside LSU’s Health Sciences Center. Fellow artists on the funk collection included Maria Muldaur, the Funky Meters, Luther Kent, and Dr. John. Each track revolved around a body part or medical ailment; Robicheaux supplied “Louisiana Medicine Man,” while the Funky Meters offered “Rockin' Pneumonia” and the Gyptians contributed “Pain in My Heart.” During the 1960s in San Francisco he joined a civic-minded circle, among them singer Janis Joplin, to open a free health clinic for the community.

Born Curtis John Arceneaux in Ascension Parish, Louisiana, in 1947, he was the eldest of four children raised by Virginia and Herman Arceneaux. He cut a single for the Mississippi label JB in 1965 but remained silent on record until the mid-1990s, when Orleans Records issued Spiritland. The well-received set led to Louisiana Medicine Man in 1998 and Hoodoo Party soon afterward. That same year Offbeat magazine named the first of those releases its Best Blues Album by a Louisiana Artist, and the following year the Big Easy Entertainment Awards gave him three nominations, one for Best Blues Artist. Beyond his regular New Orleans appearances he played shows in Colorado, New York, South Carolina, Australia, and Paris, plus festivals in Canada and France. Beginning in 1994 he performed for eight straight years at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and, starting in 1995, appeared annually at the New Orleans French Quarter Festival. After 2000 he issued three further albums on his own Spiritland imprint: Yeah, U Rite! (2005), Like I Said, Yeah, U Rite! (2008), and Revelator (2010). Coco Robicheaux passed away in New Orleans in November 2011 at the age of 64.