Warren Storm born 18 February 1937

Warren Storm (February 18, 1937 – September 7, 2021) was an American drummer and vocalist, known as a pioneer of the musical genre swamp pop; a combination of rhythm and blues, country and western, and Cajun music and black Creole music. 

Warren Schexnider was born in Vermilion Parish, some 20 miles south of Lafayette in Louisiana, and moved to nearby Abbeville to attend first grade. He got his musical inspiration from his father, who played drums, accordion and fiddle. Warren made his musical debut in 1952 when he sat in for his father (as a drummer) on a dance job and he continued playing country and Cajun music throughout his years at Abbeville High School. 

Around this time he befriended fellow Abbeville musician Bobby Charles, and the two would travel to New Orleans to hear black rhythm and blues artists in the local nightclubs, particularly Fats Domino and drummers Earl Palmer and Charles "Hungry" Williams. These visits to New Orleans greatly influenced Storm's musical tastes and his own drumming style. Storm cites New Orleans rhythm and blues musician Charles "Hungry" Williams as a major drumming influence. 

In 1956 he formed his first group, the Wee-Wows and changed his name to Warren Storm. A club owner introduced him to businessman/producer/ songwriter Jay Miller, who owned a recording studio and ran several tiny independent labels out of Crowley, Louisiana. Miller also produced for other labels, in particular Ernie Young's Excello label (from Nashville) and its pop subsidiary, Nasco. After a successful audition for Miller, Warren was placed on Nasco and had his first session for the label in May 1958. 

                        

Miller convinced Nasco records of Nashville to release a 45 RPM record of Storm's version of the old country composition "Prisoner's Song"; the flip side was "Mama Mama Mama (Look What Your Little Boy's Done)." The release broke into the Billboard Hot 100 and both songs became lifelong standards for Storm. Storm also served as a session drummer for Miller in the late 1950s and 1960s and appeared on dozens of swamp blues sessions for Excello by artists such as Lazy Lester, Lightnin' Slim, Katie Webster, and Lonesome Sundown. 

Over the following years Storm recorded swamp pop music for numerous labels, including Rocko, Zynn, American Pla-Boy, Top Rank, and Dot. In the early 1960s he teamed up with fellow swamp pop musicians Rod Bernard and Skip Stewart to form The Shondells, performing with the group and cutting tracks on the La Louisianne label until The Shondells disbanded around 1970. 

Meanwhile, Storm released songs on several more labels, including ATCO, Sincere, and Teardrop, and, later, Premier, Showtime, Starflite, and Jin, among others. It was during this period that Storm recorded two more regional favorites, "Lord I Need Somebody Bad Tonight" and "My House of Memories". 

During the 1980s and '90s, Storm appeared as a regular house musician at several south Louisiana dance clubs, and in 1989 recorded the Cajun Born LP for La Louisianne with fellow south Louisiana musicians Rufus Thibodeaux, Johnnie Allan, and Clint West. "Storm has built a career and reputation as a vocalist and musician of great skill, talent and artistry, influencing and inspiring generations of performers to create and perpetuate music unique to southwest Louisiana," reported a city proclamation declaring June 15, 1998, as Warren Storm day. 

Around 2000, Storm experienced a resurgence in popularity when he joined the Lil' Band of Gold, an all-star south Louisiana band that included, among others, guitarist C. C. Adcock, accordionist Steve Riley of the Mamou Playboys; fiddler David Greely; Richard Comeaux of River Road; and pianist David Egan of Filé. 

On September 5, 2010, during his performance at the "Boogie for the Bayou" fundraiser event at Paragon Casino in Marksville, Louisiana, Storm was inducted into The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.

Storm died from Covid on September 7, 2021, at the age of 84. 

(Edited from Wikipedia, This Is My Story & Daily Advertiser)