Antoinette K-Doe RIP

Antoinette K-Doe, 66, Who Turned Club Into Shrine to Husband, Dies By WILLIAM GRIMESThe first Baby Dolls showed up early Tuesday at Ernie K-Doe???s Mother-in-Law Lounge in New Orleans, ready for Mardi Gras. Outfitted in satin bonnets and outlandish Baby Snooks dresses, the platoon of undeniably adult women had turned up to meet their leader, Antoinette K-Doe, for a march up Claiborne Avenue and back to the lounge for a day of full-tilt celebrating.But, escorted by the skeletons of the North Side Skull and Bones Gang, they had to march without her.Earlier that morning, Miss Antoinette, as New Orleans knew her ??? Nettie to her closest friends ??? died in the club that she had transformed into a shrine to her late husband, the rhythm and blues singer Ernie K-Doe, and a nerve center for the Trem?? neighborhood.Mrs. K-Doe was 66. The cause was a heart attack, said Gary Hughes, the husband of her adopted daughter, Jackie. The lounge remained open, of course. There was no question about that. ???That was the one day of the year she really looked forward to, and I said it wouldn???t be right if I closed the lounge,??? Mr. Hughes said. ???She???d be spinning in the morgue if I closed the bar down on Mardi Gras.???Both lounge and owner were legendary in New Orleans. The club opened in the mid-1990s as part of Mrs. K-Doe???s ambitious project to revive the career of Mr. K-Doe, best known for the 1961 hit ???Mother-in-Law??? and a flamboyant personal style that included long, manicured fingernails and a towering, curled wig. After his death, the Mother-in-Law became a temple dedicated to the memory of Mr. K-Doe (born Ernest Kador Jr.) and something more: an unofficial headquarters for the neighborhood???s Mardi Gras activities, a soup kitchen featuring Mrs. K-Doe???s red beans and rice, an aid station after Hurricane Katrina where Mrs. K-Doe helped local musicians get back on their feet, and a planning center for Mrs. K-Doe???s multiple projects. These included reviving the Baby Dolls, a traditional marching group that she recalled from her childhood but that had dwindled over the years to a single, elderly Baby Doll. ???She was full of energy and enthusiasm and always looking for ways to fulfill her mission, to keep the memory of K-Doe alive and well,??? said David Freedman, the general manager of radio station WWOZ, where Mr. K-Doe spent some wild years as an on-air personality. ???She was a kind of drum majorette who kept us all going.???Antoinette Dorsey, a cousin of the singer Lee Dorsey, was born and reared in New Orleans. After marrying Earl Fox, she moved to Buras, in Plaquemines Parish, south of New Orleans. She had no children of her own, but she said that she and her husband took care of 27 foster children over the years. She worked as a seamstress and as a welder???s helper on offshore oil rigs.After separating from Mr. Fox, she returned to New Orleans in the 1980s and worked as a grocery store clerk, a bartender and a bar manager. It was at the Hinky Dinky bar that she struck up a relationship with Mr. K-Doe, an all-too-frequent customer. A string of regional hits had kept him a local celebrity until the mid-1960s, but he was an alcoholic and near-derelict when his future wife sized him up and decided she could turn his life around.She did. ???She had a remarkable influence on this guy, who was just uncontrollable,??? Mr. Freedman said. ???She got him to sober up, and they were running a bar. It???s amazing that anyone could get K-Doe to do anything, much less that.??? Located in a nondescript corner bar, with a jukebox full of K-Doe records and walls covered in K-Doe memorabilia, the Mother-in-Law Lounge was a badly needed platform for Mr. K-Doe, a performer fond of referring to himself as Emperor of the Universe. Mrs. K-Doe, who married Mr. K-Doe there and lived with him in an upstairs apartment, made it an extension of her gregarious, bustling personality. The music was eclectic, and so was the crowd. ???There were elderly black couples from the neighborhood, grunge kids with green hair and busloads of blue-haired ladies from the suburbs,??? said Ben Sandmel, who is writing a book about Mr. K-Doe. ???Antoinette made everybody feel equal, at home and comfortable.???After Mr. K-Doe died in 2001, Mrs. K-Doe commissioned an effigy, made from a department-store mannequin, that kept her husband a highly visible, if unsettling, presence in the lounge. Clothed in an ever-changing array of Mr. K-Doe???s performing outfits, stitched by his wife, and topped with one of the singer???s magnificent Louis XIV wigs, the faux K-Doe surveys the club, seated on a throne, or goes out for public appearances. When Hurricane Katrina hit, Mrs. K-Doe stayed put. She moved the memorabilia and the statue upstairs and, armed with a shotgun, kept watch over her domain for more than a week before being airlifted out.???I heard guys in the water talking about breaking into the lounge for the whiskey,??? she told USA Today in 2007. ???I fired my shotgun right over their heads, close enough to scare them away. And I yelled, ???I have more bullets!??? Nobody was getting in.???Although the club was badly damaged by the flooding, Mrs. K-Doe enlisted the help of the volunteer group Hands On and the financial support of the singer Usher to rebuild. Geannie Thomas, the manager of the Mother-in-Law, said, ???I???m sure going to do everything I can to keep it going. She died for this club. It was her life.???