He’s a Fountain of steady resolve
Pete Fountain’s home in Bay St. Louis, Miss., told his life story -- gold albums, pictures of him posing with four presidents, thank-you notes from Frank Sinatra and beloved clarinets and other vintage instruments.
But Hurricane Katrina wiped virtually all the treasures away, destroying his plantation-style home and about 10 instruments -- even a grand piano. Fountain and his wife, Beverly, survived after multiple evacuations that took them from Cajun Country to Cotton Country when hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck.
Still, at 75, Fountain is intent on performing again.
“Those two ladies, especially Katrina, really got me,” Fountain said recently in his newly rented home in Hammond, La., about 50 miles northwest of New Orleans. “But I have two of my best clarinets so I’m OK. I can still toot.”
Fountain, renowned for leading his Half-Fast Walking Club on Fat Tuesday down St. Charles Avenue to the French Quarter, said that tradition will continue. “We might walk in our drawers, but we’re going to walk,” he said.
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