Although her husband, rhythm-and-blues singer Ernie K-Doe, died eight years ago, he was still at his wife's New Orleans funeral after her death on Fat Tuesday at age 66. But this Ernie was a fully costumed mannequin seated in a mule-drawn carriage that followed her casket. As the widow of the self-proclaimed "Emperor of the Universe"--whose 1961 hit song "Mother-in-Law" provided the name for the music lounge the couple would later establish as a New Orleans institution--Antoinette thought it her duty to keep Ernie's memory alive with the life-size likeness she kept at the establishment. The mannequin's hands were removable so...
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