Often called “The King of Swing,” Louis Prima was a singer, songwriter, trumpeter, and one of the most successful performers of the big band jazz era. ∙ Born and raised in New Orleans, he played violin from a young age before finding inspiration in the Dixieland sound of such local jazz musicians as trumpeter Louis Armstrong. ∙ Prima wrote the 1936 song “Sing, Sing, Sing”—a jazz standard and career-making hit for swing music legend Benny Goodman. ∙ Impressed by his performance in Washington, D.C., First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt personally invited Prima to play for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s birthday in 1939. ∙ After achieving enormous success touring in the 1940s, he released his debut album, Louis Prima Plays For The People, in 1953. ∙ His Las Vegas residency—nicknamed “The Wildest Show In Vegas”—pioneered the city’s nightclub scene and was famously captured on the 1956 album The Wildest!. ∙ At the first-ever Grammy Awards in 1958, Prima and wife Keely Smith won Best Performance By A Vocal Group for their hit collaboration “That Old Black Magic.” ∙ He made his voice-acting debut in the 1967 animated film The Jungle Book, playing the orangutan King Louie and performing the song “I Wan’na Be Like You.” ∙ During the ’90s swing revival, he gained new fans and inspired covers, such as The Brian Setzer Orchestra’s Grammy Award-winning version of “Jump, Jive, An’ Wail.” ∙ After being sampled on the 2018 single “4th Dimension” by KIDS SEE GHOSTS, he broke the record for longest gap between Billboard Hot 100 appearances—59 years.
