Clarence “Frogman” Henry, the New Orleans musician whose signature croak helped him score a memorable Fifties novelty hit, “Ain’t Got No Home,” died Sunday, April 7. He was 87.
Henry’s family confirmed his death to New Orleans’ CBS affiliate 4WWL. No exact cause of death was given, though according to various reports, Henry’s health had been declining for several years and he’d recently undergone an unspecified surgery.
While “Ain’t Got No Home” helped him launch his career, he arguably reached his peak in the early Sixties. In 1961, he scored his biggest hit with a rendition of “(I Don’t Know Why) But I Do,” while achieving modest success with versions of “You Always Hurt the One You Love” and “Lonely Street.” A few years later, the Beatles took Henry along as an opening act on their 1964 North American tour.
Henry was born in 1937 and grew up in the Algiers neighborhood of New Orleans. Playing trombone and piano, he scored gigs in the early Fifties performing alongside Bobby Mitchell and the Toppers, as well as sax player Eddie Smith. It was after an extremely long and exhausting gig with Smith’s band one night that Henry found himself still on stage with an eager audience before him; so, he started improvising a song, which later became “Ain’t Got No Home.”
“I just hit a riff on the piano,” Henry recalled in an interview. “I kept it. It stayed in mind.”
On its surface, “Ain’t Got No Home” was a bustling rhythm and blues tune, but Henry made it stand out — and earned his “Frogman” nickname in the process — as he made a performance out of the lyrics, “I got a voice/I love to sing/I sing like a girl/And I sing like a frog.”.” After singing the first verse in his normal voice, he sang the second in a high-pitched falsetto, and the last in a hilarious croak. (As Henry told Nola.com in 2022, he started using the frog voice in high school to tease girls, and conjured the croak by simultaneously singing and inhaling.)
Henry recorded the official version “Ain’t Got No Home” after Chess Records’ A&R man Paul Gayten heard the song and took it to Leonard Chess. The single was released in late 1956 and quickly rose up the charts, reaching Number 20 on the Pop Charts and Number Three on the national R&B chart.
While “(I Don’t Know Why) But I Do” proved to be an even bigger hit for Henry, “Ain’t Got No Home” remained his signature track, and the most enduring one. It popped up in movies like The Lost Boys and Martin Scorsese’s Casino, and also received a strange second life in the early Nineties, when right-wing radio firebrand Rush Limbaugh started using it, sometimes while discussing and mocking homeless people. For Henry, though, Limbaugh’s support meant a boost for his long-meager royalty checks.
“Rush helped me great with my career, ’cause my royalties were down and by him playing ‘Ain’t Got No Home,’ everybody started knowing about Frogman with Rush,” Henry said. “It brought my royalties back up. I tell you, he hasn’t done me any harm. I have nothing against Rush. You know there’s two sides to everybody. People don’t know the story, but I heard the story of Rush. I have nothing against Rush. But Rush haven’t done me anything. All he did was good for me and I respect him.”
Following his successful run of singles in the early Sixties, and his stint opening for the Beatles, Henry occasionally returned to the studio, but primarily made his living on stage. He was a fixture in New Orleans, performing at clubs on Bourbon Street and frequently appearing at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.
