Professor Longhair, "Crawfish Fiesta" (Alligator, 1980)

No Mardi Gras party would be complete without a visit from the Professor.

From the late '40s onward, Henry Roeland Byrd (1918-80) was the embodiment of the New Orleans sound, with his rollicking honky-tonk piano and high-pitched voice shouting out lyrics about having a good ol' time.

As Professor Longhair (or "Fess"), Byrd had a sporadic recording career. He hit it big with his first record, the ironically titled "Bald Head," in 1949, and followed it over the years with several songs that have become staples of the Big Easy: "Tipitina," "Hey Now Baby," "Going to the Mardi Gras" and "Mardi Gras in New Orleans," to name a few.

By the early '70s, though, his career had kind of fallen on hard times. That's when a younger musician named Mac Rebennack, who had served as the Professor's studio guitarist a few years before, brought Byrd's music back to the public consciousness under his own pseudonym of Dr. John the Night Tripper. (You'll remember Dr. John/Rebennack's "Right Place, Wrong Time" as a hit around that time.) As a result, Fess' music started being reissued in various anthologies, including the exceptional "Rock 'n' Roll Gumbo," which features Gatemouth Brown doing yeoman's work on guitar and violin.

Rebennac - remember, he played piano on "The Star-Spangled Banner" prior to Super Bowl XL - also plays guitar on "Crawfish Fiesta," which turned out to be the swan song for Fess, who died shortly after the album's release. "Fiesta" features many of his performance staples, including the catchy whistling he'd often do to complement his piano gymnastics (such as on the opening track, "Big Chief.") Some of the album's highlights include a lengthy workout by the Professor's horn section on "Her Mind Is Gone," his duet with conga player Alfred "Uganda" Roberts on "Willie Fugal's Blues" and a remake of the call-and-response song that started it all, "Bald Head."

Professor Longhair may be long gone, but come Mardi Gras time in New Orleans, he continues to be of the most popular men in town.