Bio

Who IS this . . . “Lafayette Ben Charlatan?”

Lafayette Ben Charlatan is a singing piano tinkler and a human still; a walking distillation of 20th century American popular music. He draws from ragtime, to show tunes, jazz, rock and back to a singer sitting at a piano with a great song.

He works The Great American Songbook and worships at the alter of Temple Beth-Gershwin (George & Ira, of course). Besides the classics, he sprinkles in a “lagniappe” of not-so-standards from the likes of Tom Waits, Dr. John, Leon Russell, Elvis Costello, and others that vibrate at his same frequency. His own songs reflect a tidy summary of all that came before. Makes sense for a man hopelessly stuck in the past.