James Carroll Booker III, known as the Piano Prince, was an extremely talented jazz, New Orleans rhythm and blues and soul musician, died on November 8, 1983 in New Orleans, Louisiana at the age of 43 in the waiting undiscovered in a wheelchair in lobby of the emergency room in C...
James Carroll Booker III, known as the Piano Prince, was an extremely talented jazz, New Orleans rhythm and blues and soul musician, died on November 8, 1983 in New Orleans, Louisiana at the age of 43 in the waiting undiscovered in a wheelchair in lobby of the emergency room in Charity Hospital. He had taken a deadly dose of low-grade cocaine (heroin) and passed out. By the time he was discovered, he was already dead, having suffered heart and lung failure. He was only 43 years old. James mastered the left hand piano technique and help to define the modern New Orleans Jazz, R & B, and Soul sound. His recordings are considered to be America Classics. The funeral for James Carroll Booker III was sparsely attended with very little floral arrangements. He was laid to rest in a family plot at Providence Memorial Park in nearby Metarie, Louisiana. A sad farewell for a musician now honored as one of New Orleans' true piano geniuses, regarded perhaps only second to Professor Longhair.