Leon Medica, the co-writer of one of Louisiana’s most beloved songs, “New Orleans Ladies,” died June 9 in his hometown of Alexandria.
A Grammy nominee, American Music Award winner and Louisiana Music Hall of Fame inductee, Medica co-founded LeRoux, a nationally known band from Baton Rouge. He was 78.
LeRoux featured “New Orleans Ladies” on its 1978 major-label album debut, “Louisiana’s LeRoux.” An offshoot of Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown’s band and the Jeff Pollard Band, the group’s original lineup featured Medica playing bass, singer-guitarist Pollard, keyboardist Rod Roddy, trumpeter Bobby Campo and drummer David Peters. Guitarist and songwriter Tony Haselden and guitarist Jim Odom were also early LeRoux members.
“Leon was a brilliant business guy and a funky bass player,” Odom said this week. “He was a real presence in music in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and all over the South. We used to laugh at him because he’d be on the phone all day, every day, talking to people about ideas and projects, gigs and shows.”
Medica led LeRoux until Alzheimer’s disease forced his departure from the group more than a decade ago. A resident of the Nashville area for many years, he returned to Alexandria following his Alzheimer’s diagnosis.
Formed in Baton Rouge in 1977, LeRoux released five major-label albums in the late ’70s and early ’80s. The group’s highest charting songs, “Addicted” and “Nobody Said It Was Easy (Looking for the Lights),” were heard on mainstream radio and seen via MTV.
Louisiana's Leroux, circa 2000. Leon Medica is top row, third from left.
During its busiest years, LeRoux shared bills with Heart, Kansas, ZZ Top, Bob Seger, Journey and the Doobie Brothers.
Medica produced recordings by LeRoux and other acts, including former Doobie Brother Tom Johnston’s track on the “Dirty Dancing” soundtrack, “Where Are You Tonight?” The “Dirty Dancing” soundtrack album is one of the Top 10 best-selling soundtracks, selling tens of millions of copies. Medica won an American Music Award for “Where Are You Tonight?”
Medica produced and recorded that song at Studio in the Country in Bogalusa. More than a decade before “Dirty Dancing,” he co-wrote “New Orleans Ladies” at Studio in the Country with local songwriter Hoyt Garrick. A few years later, Medica brought the song to the newly formed LeRoux.
Although “New Orleans Ladies” reached only No. 59 on the Billboard Hot 100, it became LeRoux’s most popular song in Louisiana. In the band’s classic recording of the atmospheric ballad, lead singer Pollard laments: “All the way, from Bourbon Street to Esplanade, they sashay by, they sashay by.”
“For some reason,” Medica said of “New Orleans Ladies” in 1997, “for a lot of people, it was their song. … I watched people slow dance to it and they requested it all the time.”
Louisiana LeRoux rocks the River Center for the 20th anniversary Spanish Town Mardi Gras Ball in 2009. Performing are lead singer Terry Brock, left, and bassist Leon Medica.
The enduring popularity of “New Orleans Ladies” led to LeRoux’s first greatest hits album, 1996’s “Bayou Degradable: The Best of Louisiana’s LeRoux.” Most of the band’s original members reunited to promote the release with performances in Baton Rouge, New Orleans and Lafayette.
LeRoux annually performed a limited number of engagements during its later years. The band also continued recording, including “Brother to the Blues,” the group’s Grammy-nominated 2006 album with Houma blues artist Tab Benoit.
Medica’s non-LeRoux work included European tours with Zachary Richard and pre-LeRoux gigs in the house bands for musicals in New York and London. Even after he moved into management and artist-and-repertoire work in Nashville, LeRoux remained a priority.
“I couldn’t let it go,” he said in 2012. “They’re my friends.”
Baton Rouge singer and keyboardist Nelson Blanchard joined LeRoux in 1997.
“Although Leon accomplished a lot, he didn’t think he was better than other people,” Blanchard recalled Wednesday. “He made everybody he worked with feel at home.”
Medica is survived by his son, Leon Justin Medica, daughter Caroline Rose Medica and sister Leona Mandina. Services are Friday in Alexandria at Kramer Funeral Home, 2905 Masonic Drive. Visitation begins at 11 a.m., with a memorial service at 1 p.m. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made to the Alzheimer’s Association at alz.org.