Pianist Katie Webster dead at 63 Katie Webster died Sunday of heart failure at her home in League City, Texas. She was 63. Webster recorded prolifically for Excello and Goldband during the '50s and '60s and was a member of Otis Redding's band in the late '60s. Her '80s and '90s albums for Arhoolie and Alligator Records displayed her talents as a boogie-woogie, RnB, swamp-pop, blues, and Southern soul player. She continued to perform after suffering a debilitating stroke in 1993.                                                                 Chris Morris, L.A.

Webter's sassy and sensuous blend of barrelhouse
  boogie-woogie, New Orleans RnB, Gulf Coast swamp-pop, deep
  bayou blues and Southern gospel-flavored soul placed her among the
  most in-demand blues artists in the country and made her a favorite at
  festivals and concert halls all over the world. As a teen, Webster was
  already hailed as South Louisiana's reigning piano queen. She recorded
  on more than 500 singles during the 1950s and 60s.

  Born Kathryn Jewel Thorne on January 11, 1936 in Houston, Texas,
  Webster first learned piano as a child. Her deeply religious parents
  strictly warned her to play only gospel and classical music, going so far
  as to keep the piano under lock and key so Katie could only play while
  being supervised. But Webster loved the blues, rock and rnb she
  heard on an old Philco radio hidden under the bed covers late at night,
  and would play her secular music at every opportunity. While still a
  teenager, Webster moved to South Louisiana when her parents
relocated to California. She lived with less rigid relatives who allowed
her to play the music she loved. By the age of 15 Webster was one of
the most requested studio musicians in the region. Both Jay Miller of
Excello Records and Eddie Shuler of Goldband Records used her on
hundreds recordings in the 1950s and 1960s, including sides with
Guitar Junior Lonnie Brooks, Slim Harpo, Lazy Lester, Lightnin' Slim,
and Clifton Chenier. In 1964, a young Otis Redding caught Webster's
set with her band the Uptighters in Lake Charles, Louisiana, and
demanded she join his touring band the very next day.

Katie Webster toured the country with Redding, and can be heard on his
LIVE AT THE WHISKEY A-GO-GO album. Unable to join Redding
on his tour of 1967 because she was pregnant, and so luckily she was not on the
plane that took Redding's life. Devastated by his death, she kept a very
low profile until the early 1980s, when she made her debut tour of
Europe. The audiences couldn't get enough of Webster and her musical expression, and she returned for European tours over 30 times.

Katie enjoyed a successful solo career in the 1980s, releasing albums on Arhoolie and a number of European labels. She signed with Alligator Records in 1988, cutting three albums for the label:  SWAMP BOOGIE QUEEN,with guests Bonnie
  Raitt and Robert Cray.  TWO FISTED MAMA was put down in 198? followed by
  NO FOOLIN'  in 8?

In 1993, Webster was felled by a stroke while touring in Greece, and
  lost some of the use of her left hand and almost all of her eyesight. But
  her magnificent voice and wonderful right hand, not to mention her
  inimitable spirit, kept her going strong. She continued to appear at
  selected festivals. Even though her health wouldn't support extended
  touring, her final performances were filled with the same boogie-woogie
  drive and spirit that originally earned Katie Webster the title Swamp
  Boogie Queen.
 

In February 1999, Alligator released the  timely DELUXE  EDITION, a collection of Webster's greatest recorded performances  from her years with the label, including a number of previously unreleased tracks on it. If you are looking for an introduction to the Swamp Boogie Queen there is no better place to start although all her albums are a joy and well worth having in your collection.Fans of the lovable, extroverted Katie Webster will undoubtedly sorely miss this piano pounding institution who became one of the greatest music legends in our time.

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