John ‘Papa’ Gros

Giants

Funky Krewe Records

Born in New Orleans, John “Papa” Gros embodies his hometown’s culture and deeply rooted traditions, absorbing its music and spirit. He began playing piano and French horn at age eleven and attended Loyola University in uptown New Orleans, graduating with a degree in French horn performance. While his formal training provided discipline and technique, Gros’ real education came from the school of hard knocks in the clubs and on the streets, learning the language of groove, feel, and restraint from the musical elders who had built the city’s sound. That apprenticeship took shape in the ’90s, when Gros evolved into a first-call sideman for some of New Orleans’ most revered artists. His tenure with George Porter Jr.’s Runnin’ Pardners placed him in direct lineage with the Meters and the architects of New Orleans funk, while tours with Snooks Eaglin, Earl King, Better Than Ezra, Anders Osborne, Irma Thomas, and others sharpened his musical instincts and sense of purpose. These years cemented Gros not just as a formidable keyboardist, but as a musician entrusted with carrying cultural weight.

In 2000, Gros formed Papa Grows Funk, a band that would become synonymous with modern New Orleans funk. Anchored by a legendary twelve-year Monday night residency at the fabled Maple Leaf Bar, Papa Grows Funk fused deep funk grooves with jazz spontaneity and unfiltered live energy. Papa Grows Funk released six studio and live albums, including Needle in the Groove, co-produced by New Orleans legend Allen Toussaint, and toured extensively throughout the U.S. and abroad, building a devoted following before disbanding in 2013, all documented in the independent documentary film Do U Want It?

After Papa Grows Funk ended its run, Gros returned to sideman work, contributing to high-profile tributes honoring Dr. John and the Neville Brothers. The 2014 “Music Mojo of Dr. John” concert, later released as a live album, featured Gros alongside Bruce Springsteen, Mavis Staples, Jason Isbell, and John Fogerty, and allowed him to perform with both Dr. John and Allen Toussaint, two of his most influential mentors.

The widespread devastation and social upheaval of Hurricane Katrina reshaped Gros’ purpose, deepening his commitment to telling New Orleans’ story through music. That sense of responsibility carried forward into his solo work, beginning with 2004’s Days End, followed by 2016’s River on Fire, a bold statement of artistic independence and maturity. In 2020, Gros released Central City, a joyful, intergenerational celebration of New Orleans songcraft featuring an all-star cast of local icons and collaborators. Giants was recorded by David Farrell at Silent S Studio in New Orleans.

Giants opens with “Quitters Never Win,” written by Malcolm Rebennack, a.k.a. Dr. John, in 1974. Gros plays piano, Wurlitzer, and organ, provides the horn arrangements, and takes all lead vocals. Featured are guitarist Alex Mallet; bassist Matt Booth; drummer Russ Broussard; the horn section of Michael Christie, trumpet; Ian Bowman, tenor saxophone; and Terrance Taplin, trombone; and backing vocalists Yolanda Robinson, Jolynda Kiki Chapman, Mark Carson, and Danny Abel. Gros sings, “Quitters never win, and a winner don’t never quit. Freaks stand up and looking fine, they don’t do nothing, got a one-track mind. Got to wear down their resistance, cause the whole town couldn’t stop the system. Yeah.”

On “Hurricane,” written by Thom Schuyler, Keith Stegall, and Stewart Harris and recorded by Levon Helm in 1980, Gros chimes, “Hurricane, thirty miles out in the Gulf Stream, I can hear them south winds moan, the bridges are looking lower, Shrimp boats hurrying home. The Old Man in the Quarter, slowly turned his head, took another sip from his whiskey bottle, and looked at me and he said, I was born in the rain by the Ponchatrain, underneath the Louisiana moon.”

“All That I’ve Got” was written by Billy Preston and Doris Troy in 1970 and released on Apple Records, produced by George Harrison. Gros chants, “All that I’ve got, I want you to know, every day of my life, I’m gonna give it to you. I can give you things that someone else can’t. Woah, but all that I’ve got, I want you to know, I’ll give it to you. Woah, now can’t promise you things, that I don’t possess, no Woah, but all that I’ve got, I want you to know, I’m gonna give it to you.”

On “Yes We Can Can,” written and recorded by Allen Toussaint in 1970 and further popularized by the Pointer Sisters when they covered it in 1973, Gros cries, “Now is the time, now is the time for all good men, to get together with one another, iron out the problems and try to live as brothers, and try to find a peace within, without stepping on one another and do respect the women of the world. Just remember we all had mothers, make this land, a better land. In the world in which we live, and help each other be a better man, with the kindness that you give. I know we can make it, I know darn well we can…yes we can can.”

On the closer, “Ain’t No Use,” written in 1974 by Zigaboo Modeliste, Art Neville, Leo Nocentelli, and George Porter Jr., known collectively as the Meters, Gros croons, “Ain’t no use to cut you loose, I wouldn’t last a day, ain’t no use to cut you loose, guess I’m here to stay. I could thimk of a thousand reasons, for me to leave you, but I know if I ever walk out of that door, I wouldn’t know what to do…you got me where you want me, I’m shackled to your love, set me free, set me free now.”

John “Papa” Gros is a New Orleans pianist, organist, and singer-songwriter whose career reflects the city itself — resilient, rhythmic, steeped in tradition, and always evolving. For more than thirty years, Gros has served as both a keeper and a translator of New Orleans music, blending funk, R&B, jazz, blues, rock, and Americana into a sound that is deeply rooted yet forward-looking. Rather than simply recreating familiar recordings, Gros and his band reinterpret these songs through the lens of a lifetime immersed in the New Orleans groove tradition, balancing reverence with spontaneity, soulful expression, and fearless musicianship. Although only thirty-seven minutes long, Giants will keep you humming for quite some time.

Richard Ludmerer

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