Man, I'm so tired of having to add obits to this site! But we've lost another pioneer.

Huey "Piano" Smith was best known for writing and performing the classic Rockin' Pneumonia & The Boogie Woggle Flu that Johnny Rivers brought back to life in the 70s. His biggest hit with his group The Clowns came in 1958, when Don't You Just Know It soared to #9 on Billboard, one of his first crossover hits. 

I never knew that "Sea Cruise" was also a Smith song - and one he bitterly never got proper credit for. 

"The lack of credit Smith received for 1959’s “Sea Cruise,” released as a Frankie Ford single, broke his heart. Johnny Vincent, president of Ace Records in Jackson, Mississippi, issued the song as a Ford single after its original Smith and Gerri Hall duo vocals were replaced by Ford’s solo voice. The 18-year-old singer’s manager believed that Ford, a White teenager, would sell more records than Smith, a Black artist.

“It hurt me to my heart when he told me he was taking that,” Smith said decades later. Ironically, “Don’t You Just Know It,” credited to Smith and the Clowns, charted five spots higher than “Sea Cruise,” which peaked at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100."

New Orleans rock ’n’ roll pioneer Huey 'Piano' Smith has died