The son of a Southern Pacific yardmaster in Lafayette, Larry Logan was working as a clerk in the local railyard when he decided he and his harmonica could beat the odds and make it through the rough and tumble world of show business. He had more gall than sense at the time, he said in an interview in 2002, but it paid off.

"What a wonderful dream of youth," he said. "That's it. Just a young boy with big dreams of becoming a star, a great musician, a personality, a 'somebody.' "

 His mouth organ and his Irish wit carried him to performances in the entertainment capitals of the United States and around the world.

 He shared the stage with a list of luminaries that reads like a showbiz Who's Who: Mickey Rooney, Rudy Vallee, Jimmy Durante, Milton Berle, Bob Hope, Cesar Romero, Carmen Miranda, Eddie Cantor, Steve Allen, Cab Calloway, Arthur Godfrey, The McGuire Sisters, Pat Boone, Pearl Bailey, Hank Williams Sr., and dozens more.

 Most often he played from the lighter side of his repertoire, but Logan was a serious musician, and he also played serious music at Carnegie Hall and with the St. Louis Symphony, Washington Symphony, New Orleans Philharmonic and Singapore Radio Orchestra, among others.

 His musical career had ups and downs, and sometimes had to be augmented with other lines of work, but, Logan said, the ups outdid the downs.

By: Jim Bradshaw
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