New Orleans singer Clarence 'Frogman' Henry, of 'Ain't Got No Home' fame, has died

Clarence “Frogman” Henry, the New Orleans rhythm & blues singer whose croaking impersonation of a “lonely frog” turned the 1956 single “Ain’t Got No Home” into an enduring novelty hit, died Sunday at University Medical Center of complications following back surgery, one of his daughters confirmed. He was 87.

His many fans included the four members of the Beatles, who took him along as the opening act for a 1964 tour.

Born in 1937, he grew up in the 7th Ward before his family moved to the lower coast of Algiers. Henry played trombone in the L.B. Landry High School band. He started taking piano lessons as a teenager, when New Orleans was a hotbed of musical activity. At 15, he bought his first piano for $610 from Hall Piano in Metairie. He was still in high school when he joined Bobby Mitchell's band, the Toppers.

Striking out on his own, he recorded “Ain’t Got No Home,” which sprang from one of his nightclub improvisations, at recording engineer Cosimo Matassa’s studio. Across the verses of the song, Henry sang in his normal voice, in a falsetto and as the craggy-voiced frog.

In a 2022 interview, he recalled creating the frog voice in high school to tease girls; he achieved the desired frog-like croak by inhaling and singing at the same time.

Released by Argo Records, a subsidiary of Chess Records, “Ain’t Got No Home” reached as high as No. 3 on the national R&B charts and cracked the Top 10 on the national pop charts.

He followed up that hit with a cover of southwest Louisiana songwriter Bobby Charles’ gently swaying “(I Don’t Know Why) But I Do,” which charted in 1961. Henry’s version of “You Only Hurt the Ones You Love,” which numerous artists, including fellow New Orleanian Fats Domino, had previously recorded, made it into the Top 20 that same year.

In 1964, Henry joined the Beatles for several dates on an American tour, including the Sept. 16 show at his hometown City Park Stadium (now Tad Gormley Stadium). 

Forty years after the fact, Henry told OffBeat magazine that he was paid $750 a week for the Beatles tour. He had met them around 1961 in England. His manager at the time, Bob Astor, worked for the same company that promoted the Beatles' '64 tour. That connection, Michael Hurtt wrote in OffBeat, led to Henry joining the Beatles' tour.

“I saw things with the Beatles that I had never seen before on tour,” Henry told OffBeat in 2004. “Doctors and nurses and ambulances all around at every show. A lot of towns put us out, we’d get in there and they’d get us out of there. We’d play, but after we finished, that was it: get to the plane and get to the next city.”

Ironically enough, the Beatles-led British Invasion ultimately undercut the careers of New Orleans rhythm & blues artists, as musical tastes changed. 

After the mid-1960s, Henry's run of hits ended. But “Ain’t Got No Home” remained his signature song. It enjoyed a second life in movies, including 1987’s “The Lost Boys” and 1995’s “Casino.”

The song also got a boost from an unlikely benefactor: the late conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, who adopted Henry’s anthem as a sort of mocking theme song when discussing homeless people. Henry performed the song with Limbaugh during the latter's 1991 "Rush To Excellence" tour. 

Henry was married and divorced seven times. He was still in high school the first time he tied the knot. Some unions lasted only a matter of days. He married one woman twice.

He collected stuffed and ceramic, glass and stone frogs of every description. They lined shelves throughout his Algiers home, whose paneled walls were covered with photographs, awards and other memorabilia related to his career. He still had the piano he bought at 15.

His home was badly damaged by Hurricane Ida. Henry, whose mobility was severely limited in recent years, slept on a sofa amid mold-covered walls until friends and fans learned of his dire straits. Volunteers and donations helped repair his home and replace his furnishings.

Even as his health declined and he had to rely on a walker or wheelchair, he continued to make occasional appearances onstage.

Sixty years after he toured with the Beatles, he had planned to perform at the 2024 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival on Thursday, April 25, as part of "The New Orleans Classic Recording Revue" alongside the Dixie Cups, Al "Carnival Time" Johnson and Wanda Rouzan.

He insisted on having back surgery in February, his daughter Cathy Henry said, "because he thought he was going to walk and play Jazz Fest."

She said her father went home to Algiers after surgery, but complications developed and he eventually was readmitted.

The Jazz Fest show was to have included a tribute to Jean Knight, the "Mr. Big Stuff" singer who died in 2023. It will likely now include a tribute to Frogman.

Funeral arrangements are incomplete.