KALB: Lee Ann Whitt Talks About Les and His Amazing Life

Here. Lee Ann’s incredible, and this morning, she delivered a moving and heartwarming eulogy to her husband. Kudos to KALB for posting most of it online.

It’s been a tough few days for the City of Alexandria. We lost one of our champions.

CenLamar will be displaying a picture of Les Whitt on the sidebar, and this picture will remain until Phase Two of the African Experience exhibit is completed. We need state and federal support to make this happen. And we need the support of everyone in the Central Louisiana community.

Les’s dear friend and fellow musician Bud Albright wrote a fitting tribute to him in today’s newspaper.
Quoting:

I got to know Les better when I worked with the mentally handicapped at John Eskew Training Center right next door to the zoo at that time. He and I shared a love for music and soon became good friends. Gary Perkins, who owned Spirits back then, told Les and I that we should come check out this blues singer that had been frequenting his club named B.B. Major. Both Les and I were looking for someone to work with and Gary had informed us that B.B. was not happy with the musicians he was working with. We both agreed to talk with B.B to see if he wanted to do something; he did. With the support and financial help of Gary, Dr. Greg Gormanous, and a few others, Les and I took Maj into the studio and recorded him with some success.

We were soon sending the CD all over the world to blues fans who wrote letters and visited our Web site on a regular basis telling us how much they liked the music.

We even scored a No. 2 spot on the charts of a Dallas blues station and appeared in several major national blues publications.

Another CD followed and we were invited to perform regularly at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Maj was inducted into the Louisiana Hall of Fame and from one of our Jazz Fest performances asked to star in a Folgers Coffee commercial that aired nation wide.