“Lucky” Lee Hendler
OffBeat Magazine|October 2017

“I got the nickname when I was working with Lucky Peterson, a blues artist that I started touring with in my twenties, when I went around the Chitlin’ Circuit with a lot of blues artists.

Frank Etheridge
“Lucky” Lee Hendler

I’ve played piano since I was 14, and started playing with bands on Bourbon Street when I was 18. I’m 49 now.

I know 18,000 songs. I was playing at Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop in ’98 when an agent came in and asked me if I wanted to go to Norway. From there, I went to Holland and played the largest dueling piano bar in the world, Crazy Pianos, which is still running. We had 22 piano players on staff. I learned the craft of how to do the dueling show—it became part of my trick bag.

This story is from the October 2017 edition of OffBeat Magazine.

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This story is from the October 2017 edition of OffBeat Magazine.

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