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When “Ready” Teddy McQuiston heard Hurricane Katrina was headed straight for New Orleans, he didn’t take it seriously at first.
“There have been so many hurricanes that have come through here I was almost ready to stay,” he said Wednesday.
But once he realized the full strength of the hurricane, he started walking out of the city on a path that took him by foot and by van, through 100-mph winds and driving rain, sleeping in Red Cross shelters and beside the road. It eventually lead him to the Penobscot County town of Bradford via good Samaritan Doug Smith, who drove down south to rescue Katrina victims.
McQuiston is more than a refugee from Hurricane Katrina: He’s a little piece of New Orleans culture that has landed right here in Maine. The dancer, singer, bluesman, emcee and producer has a big history in the Big Easy, and he has plenty of stories to share.
He has been staying with Smith and his family, enjoying home-cooked food and the kindness of strangers. And since arriving in the state a little over two weeks ago, McQuiston already has established himself in the Bangor-area music scene.
Musician Eric Green, a singer and guitarist with the Swamp Choppers, saw McQuiston on television and immediately recognized him.
“I lived in New Orleans from 1996 to 2001,” said Green. “I met Teddy a couple of times. I gave him a tape of my album. When you play in New Orleans, you know everyone. And you definitely know Teddy.”
So what else would Ready Teddy do but start playing gigs in Maine? He already is playing with the Swamp Choppers, who perform every Wednesday night at Carolina’s in Bangor. He has another gig with them tonight at the Sea Dog, also in the Queen City. Two weeks in Maine, after presumably losing his apartment and all his belongings, he’s back in the saddle, so to speak. How does he do it?
“It’s been helpful, having a band to play with. These guys are so good. They have a real New Orleans feel,” he said. “But I can’t wait to see all my musician friends in New Orleans. I just want to know how they’re doing.”
With his onstage antics and offstage friendliness, you can’t help but like the guy.
“Ready Teddy is definitely a well-known figure in New Orleans,” Scott McCraw, editor of the “American Routes” radio program that airs Sunday on Maine Public Radio, said. The show was broadcast out of New Orleans until Hurricane Katrina destroyed most of the studios. It is now temporarily based in Lafayette, La.
“He’s best remembered for his time as a community DJ on WWOZ [a local jazz and heritage radio station],” said McCraw. “And for his live shows, and handstands. I bet he’s tearing Bangor up.”
The 57-year-old McQuiston got his start as a dancer for Little Richard at the age of 17.
“I was known as Dancin’ Teddy back then,” he said. “I was living in California, and I went to see this great big show with Little Richard and a bunch of others. That was when Jimi Hendrix played guitar for him, too. Anyway, I started dancing, and Little Richard stopped the show and told everyone to get offstage but me. He told me I was a better dancer than any of those kids. He hired me as a dancer then, and I worked for him for more than 30 years.”
McQuiston is most famous for his handstands. The amazingly agile, middle-aged man will get up on a chair and then raise himself up on his hands while singing into the microphone. He’ll do one-arm pushups, even raising his whole body up on one hand. He still manages to do splits. He has been known to do back flips, but age has toned down some of the more gravity-defying aspects of his live performances.
“I’ve been a dancer all my life,” he said. “I always won the dance contests when I was a kid. I got into music later. I’ve written a bunch of songs.”
McQuiston is of average height, with a smooth voice that comes from years of radio DJing and hard-living. One of the only things he managed to rescue from his apartment, before it was submerged under 18 feet of water, was his white fedora, a Ready Teddy trademark. He’s a showman, and you can see it in the way he works a crowd, and the easy demeanor he has cultivated over the years.
He rattles off a laundry list of musicians he has worked with.
“I’ve worked with Dr. John, Solomon Burke, Bo Diddley, Muddy Waters,” he said. “All the greats. I’ve produced shows, emceed shows, and I’m a dancer. I’m an entertainer.”
McQuiston hosted a radio show on WWOZ for 10 years, which is where his celebrity as a New Orleans character was cemented. He had a minor hit in the area, with “The Night Before Christmas Blues,” a retelling of the famous Christmas poem he recorded with New Orleans blues musicians. At the Jazz and Heritage Festival, Ready Teddy is a fixture, handstands and all.
He has had his share of scrapes too. The entertainer says he was shot six times in 1988, and still has a few bullets in his body. He has been hit by a truck, and spent the night in a swamp, unable to move. He claims to have been paralyzed in his right arm, the one he does handstands with. He says he gradually built strength back up in his arm, and reversed the damage.
“I rebuilt my arm,” he said. “I’m the bionic man. The bionic blues man.”
But it was one weekend at summer’s end when Ready Teddy and millions of other Gulf Coast residents had their lives turned upside down.
“Once I knew what was going on, I helped some friends board up their houses, and then I left,” he said. “I walked 20 miles to Poplarville, Mississippi. The wind was almost knocking me over. I had to do a cartwheel to keep my balance.”
McQuiston stumbled across a Red Cross shelter at a high school gym, where he spent three nights. It was there that he met Doug Smith, the Bradford man who drove all the way from Maine to Mississippi to rescue hurricane survivors.
“I decided to just jump in the van,” he said. “I didn’t know whether or not to trust him, but I got in. By the time we got to New Jersey, we were all friends.”
McQuiston says he doesn’t know what he’s going to do next.
“I’m so lucky to be here, and to have been helped out so much,” he said. “But I don’t know when I’m going back. Once they get everything cleaned up and safer, I hope I can go home. New Orleans is my home. Though Maine has been treating me real good.”
Regardless of all the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina, McQuiston is sure that the spirit of New Orleans will live on.
“There’ll always be a horn playing on a corner somewhere,” he said. “They can wipe it off the face of the Earth, but the music, the food, the culture, it’ll stay. I think now that a lot of us New Orleans people are spread out all over the country, we can spread the joy of this city all over the place. We can turn people onto the music. Something good can come out of it.”
Emily Burnham can be reached at 990-8175 and eburnham@bangordailynews.net.
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