Little Queenie Leigh Harris

Our series of interviews with people who performed, recorded, and worked with Leigh over the years, beginning with Little Queenie & the Percolators, to her final CD, Waking Up in Dreamland is ongoing.  

Episodes are a mix of music and interviews, covering that wonderful creative era of New Orleans music history from the mid 70’s to mid 80’s. Six episodes featuring interviews with John Magnie, Ricky Sebastian, Ramsey McLean, Jimmy Anselmo and Jimmy Robinson have already been uploaded, with more to come.  Click below to give them a listen.

Additional episodes will added regularly, so keep checking back for the latest additions. And, if you performed, wrote, or recorded with Leigh, we'd love to interview you, too. Reach out to us at: NOLADIVA@TRIAD.RR.COM

Leigh 'Little Queenie' Harris was one of New Orleans' boldest, most arresting singers since her days fronting Little Queenie & the Percolators in the mid 70's and 80's. 

Inducted into Louisiana's Music Hall of Fame in 2019, she was a true New Orleans legend, a dynamic performer, able to take any song and make it her own. She commanded the stage, from small venues to huge festivals worldwide. A gifted songwriter, she belted out tunes in a style that only can be called 'New Orleans' – a little gospel, a lot of soul, a dollop of second-line funk and a heaping helping of jazz - her talents unfolding in layers as she nurtured her interpretive gifts for jazz, blues, gospel, standards, as well as her own songs. 

Leigh was born on July 27, 1954, in New Orleans, LA, the eldest daughter of Gertrude Morris Middleton and Allan Joseph Harris, Jr. From the crib, her father, a clarinetist with a love for Big Band and Dixieland music, exposed her to jazz, and Leigh showed talent at a very young age. Shortly after her first birthday, she was humming lullabies back to her parents; six months later, she'd added the lyrics.  As she told poet John Sinclair in a 1999 interview.… "and I haven't ever really shut my face since." 

She performed in plays in the backyard of her family's home in Old Metairie, and was writing folk songs when she was a student at St. Martin's. Her love of rock and roll was galvanized at age 10 after she saw The Beatles perform in City Park. She performed in public for the first time at age 11 in February 1966 singing and playing her guitar at the Tulane Unviversity Student Center in their monthly Folk Festival. The hootenanny was broadcast throughout campus and into the dorms of Tulane by WTUL radio. After finishing high school, she played the New Orleans folk music circuit. She met John Magnie in 1975, and they began writing music and singing together.

Leigh was nicknamed Little Queenie by a former boyfriend. It was a "nickname somebody made up to get me mad, but I thought was really funny," she later told John Rockwell from the New York Times.  She first performed as Little Queenie on April Fool's Day 1975 at Jed's Bar on Oak Street in uptown New Orleans.

When Tipitina’s opened in January 1977, she joined John Mooney’s Back Door Blues Revue as a vocalist. John Magnie and Leigh landed the Monday night piano duet slot at Tipitina’s, and sensing they had something good going, decided to form their own band – Little Queenie & the Percolators, playing at Tipitina’s, Jimmy’s, the Dream Palace, and more, including the Jazz and Heritage Festival. Word soon spread and the band was playing to packed venues all over town.

Over the years, Leigh sang with a host of New Orleans music legends including The Neville Brothers; Dr. John; and Professor Longhair. She also sang live or on recordings with BB King; Elvis Costello; Sun Ra; Jerry Jeff Walker; The Guess Who; Odetta; Bonerama; Wynton Marsalis; Branford Marsalis; They Might Be Giants; The Gospel Soul Children; CC Adcock; Taj Mahal; NRBQ; Harry Connick, Jr.; Buckwheat Zydeco; The Subdudes; Pete Seeger; Asleep at the Wheel; Astral Project; Larry Sieberth; Michael Wolff's Impure Thoughts; Bryan Ferry; Anders Osborne; Linton Kwesi Johnson; Roomful of Blues; Li'l Band o' Gold; The Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra; Doug Belote; Clark Vreeland; and Delbert McClinton.

She formed several groups, among them: The Skin Twins, The Boys of Joy, Little Queenie and The Rhythm and Blues Death Squad, Roy G Biv; Red Beans and Rice Review, and The Ofay Soul Choir (also known as Little Queenie's Wahini Dakinis).

Her signature song My Darlin' New Orleans was created by The Jazz Poetry Group (JPG), which also included John Magnie, the Percolators keyboard player. Poet Ron Cuccia wrote the lyrics; the JPG’s bassist, Ramsey MacLean, wrote the music; and John Magnie fleshed out the piano part and arrangement. Leigh and John took the song to the Percolators and it became their hit song, released on a 45 record. Later, Ron wrote a poem about the streets of the French Quarter, aptly named Streets, and this poem was attached to the JPG’s My Darlin’ New Orleans, as a sort of introductory rap. This version was later recorded by Leigh on her Purple Heart CD.

Over the course of her career, Leigh produced an impressive 13 CD catalog (now on YouTube and Bandcamp) and her music has been used in film and television productions. The Little Queenie and the Percolators version of My Darlin’ New Orleans played (uncredited) during end-titles on the first episode of season one of the HBO series Treme - nominated for a Grammy Award. Notably, every season of Treme included at least one of Leigh’s songs, and during season 3, Leigh is seen with Josh Paxton performing her original song 10 Carat Blues. She acted in the movie Passion Fish, and appeared in and sang I Be Blue and After You've Gone in the movie Eight Men Out.  In addition, Leigh was tapped to record vocals with the Bose Big Band for a recording to demonstrate Bose’s speaker systems. 

In 2000 Leigh was named Female Performer of the Year by Gambit Entertainment Weekly. In 2019 she was inducted (as Li'l Queenie / Leigh Harris) into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.  On July 25, 2019, the New Orleans City Council honored Harris by proclaiming her birthday, July 27, as Little Queenie Day.

On September 21, 2019 Leigh lost a valiant 3½ year battle with breast cancer, and passed peacefully at her home she called 'Harmony Hill', in North Carolina, with her husband Rick Ledbetter by her side. In addition to her husband, she is survived by her son, Alex MacDonald, and sisters Sally White and Ellen Harris.

While Leigh may be gone, she lives on in the hearts of everyone who loved her, worked with her, and saw her perform.

Leigh is recognized as an important part of New Orleans' music history by The Historic New Orleans Collection (THNOC), who is now caretaker of much of her memorabilia. Search the online catalog to view Leigh's notebooks and writings, music, photos, and promotional materials.

For information about rights, permissions, licensing, re-use, etc., please email us at NOLADIVA@TRIAD.RR.COM and put 'Permissions' in the subject line.  Be sure to include a phone number where you can be reached.

There's much to see here - so please take your time, look around, and learn about Leigh and her music.  If you have additional content about Leigh you would like to share, please email us.

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