From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Wed May 28, 2003  1:17 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Dorothy Labostrie
 
DOROTHY LABOSTRIE

Born 28 May 1928, Rayland, Kentucky

Dorothy Labostrie? Wasn't that the woman who cleaned up
the lyrics of "Tutti Frutti", your first reaction will be. We'll see.

Dorothy was born in a small mining town in rural Kentucky. Her
father, Amos Labostrie, came from a New Orleans creole family,
but moved north to find work not long after his second marriage.
After a mining accident, the Labostries moved to Mobile, Alabama,
while Dorothy was still a child. She left Mobile in 1941 and headed
for New Orleans to look for her father's relatives. There she went to 
a lot of clubs to hear music. Ever since she was in school she 
loved to write poems and sing. Dorothy knew that she wanted to
do something musically but she wasn't sure just what it was.

Labostrie's break came when Specialty Records, from Hollywood,
brought Little Richard to Cosimo's Studio for his first session for
the label. Interviewed by Jeff Hannusch for his book "I Hear You
Knockin'", Dorothy remembered, "I was listening to the radio and 
an announcement came on that immediately caught my attention.
It said that Bumps Blackwell [Specialty's producer] was looking
for songwriters. Well, as soon as I heard where he was gonna be,
I decided I was gonna be a songwriter. I was working as a cook 
for a lady and I told her that I had to quit because I was going to 
write a hit record. Well, she probably thought I was crazy, but 
that's exactly what I did.

I practically broke Cosimo's door down the next day. Little Richard
was sitting at the piano and it was the first time I'd ever laid eyes 
on him. I just asked to hear his voice and I sat down and put "Tutti
Frutti" down on paper in 15 minutes."

When confronted with Little Richard's claim that he in fact wrote
the rock 'n' roll classic, Labostrie just laughed. "Little Richard didn't
write none of 'Tutti Frutti'. I'll tell you exactly how I came to write that.
I used to live on Galvez Street and my girlfriend and I liked to go down
to the drug store and buy ice cream. One day we went in and saw
this new flavor, Tutti Frutti. Right away I thought, 'Boy, that's a great
idea for a song'. So I kept it in the back of my mind until I got to the
studio that day. I also wrote the flip side of 'Tutti Frutti', 'I'm Just A
Lonely Guy', and a spiritual, 'Blessed Mother', all in the same day."

That's the lady's story, folks! I advise you to take it with a grain of
salt, though. After "Tutti Frutti", one would have expected Specialty
to beat Labostrie's door down to get new material. But except for
contributing the rousing "Rich Woman" for Li'l Millet, such was not
the case.

Her next opportunity, on a smaller scale, came in the form of Joe 
Ruffino, who was looking for material for his local labels, Ric and Ron.
She persuaded gospel singer Johnny Adams, who lived in the same
building, to record secular material, in particular her composition
"I Won't Cry" (which wasn't a hit until it was rereleased in 1970).
Labostrie was also responsible for supplying Irma Thomas' first
record, the bawdy ("You Can Have My Husband But Please) Don't 
Mess With My Man", which went to # 22 on the R&B charts in 1960.
Dorothy continued to write material in the sixties. She claims to have
written "hundreds of songs", of which twenty-seven were recorded at 
least once, if the BMI files are anything to go by. (I must add that 
these 27 include both "Tutti Frutti" and "Wopbabalubop".)

Now living in New York, she seems to be living quite comfortably on
her writing royalties, which come in every few months. From "Tutti 
Frutti", Labostrie claims she receives on the average of $ 5000 every
three to six months. That was in the eighties, but I don't think much 
has changed since then.

(Based on page 219-224 of "I Hear You Knockin'" by Jeff Hannusch.
Ville Platte, LA : Swallow Publications, 1985.)