Known to his fans as “Jivin’ Gene” was born in Port Arthur, Texas, and attended school there. He was 15 when he taught himself to play the guitar. Gene and his friends John Piggot, Jimmy Fowler, and Butch Landry would get together to play tunes by Chuck Berry and other black artist they admired. At 17 Gene was playing with a group called The Saints when Huey Meaux became his manager. It was Meaux who began calling him Jivin’ Gene, and the group the group became Jivin’ Gene and the Jokers.

Gene recorded from the radio station KPAC for the Jin label, and both Going Out With the Tide and Breaking Up is Hard to Do were hits. He toured and was on various radio shows, including the Alan Freed Show, but the Payola scandal of the early 60s changed everything. Agents and music “sharks” were giving special favors to disc jockeys for playing particular songs. When this was revealed, the scandal hurt up-and-coming stars like Gene.

This “Child of Rythm and Blues” who is considered a pioneer in the field of “swamp rock” stopped playing until the 1980s. He worked on the Alaska Pineline during 1970s. He now works construction through Insulars Local No. 22, along with John Piggot, who had also became a famous figure in Gulf Coast music history. (Piggot and his son, Barry, now have a group called Barry and the Heartbeats.) When Piggot asked him to play at some dances, Bourgeois says he sometimes wonders what he would be like if he’d never picked up a guitar and had gone to college instead. But, he says, the desire to continue playing always there for him.


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