Age has treated Lenny LaCour better than the record business ever did. The 70-year-old musician-promoter wears a pressed gray suit, accented by a maroon tie, as he sips coffee in a booth at a pancake house near his Melrose Park home, and a full head of jet-black hair complements a thin W. Clement Stone mustache.
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“In Chicago, Lenny was one of the early pioneers of pushing and creating rock ‘n’ roll,” says local soul historian Robert Pruter, who has written about LaCour for the British magazine Now Dig This. “Lenny recorded vocal groups and the approximation of rockabilly we had here. Some of his records got considerable play here and nationwide. But no one really recognizes the guy.”
“Lenny was more outstanding than his artists,” says Herb “the Cool Gent” Kent, who was DJing at WBEE when he met LaCour in 1960. “He was creole and had pretty hair. He was soft-spoken, but intense about producing his records. He was a classic example of a local record promoter.”
LaCour’s creole heritage enabled him to move freely between Chicago’s black and white nightclubs during the early 50s. “There were only two people doing that,” he says. The other was Leonard Chess. “When [Chess] started pressing records, I wanted to get on his label. I brought him demos of ‘Alligator Man,’ ‘Rockin’ Rosalie,’ and ‘Old Fish.’ He dropped his glasses down his nose, looked over the top of them, and said, ‘Want me to play these?’ He played the demos, looked at me again, and said, ‘I like “Old Fish,” but I don’t see anybody walking down the street calling their girl “Old Fish.” And I don’t put white boys on my label.’ Muddy Waters was in the room. He said, ‘Mr. Chess, he’s got a whole lot of soul in his voice.’”
“I’d call Lenny a cross between Sam Phillips and Colonel [Tom] Parker,” says Kaider. “But he doesn’t have the attack thing they did. We never made any money. Lenny is too nice a guy for the business he’s in.”
