Born Warren Schexnider on February 18, 1937, in Leroy, Louisiana, he moved to nearby
Abbeville, Louisiana, to attend first grade. Storm learned to play drums and guitar from his father, a Cajun musician. In the early 1950s, he began to perform publicly with Larry Brasso and the Rhythmaires. Around this time he befriended fellow Abbeville musician
Bobby Charles, and the two would travel to
New Orleans to hear black rhythm and blues artists in the local nightclubs, particularly
Fats Domino and drummers
Earl Palmer and
Charles "Hungry" Williams. These visits to New Orleans greatly influenced Storm's musical tastes and his own drumming style. Storm cites
New Orleans rhythm and blues musician Charles "Hungry" Williams as a major drumming influence. In 1956, Storm founded his own rhythm and blues/early
rock and roll group, and in 1958 he began recording for
Crowley, Louisiana, record producer
J. D. "Jay" Miller. Miller convinced Nasco records of
Nashville to release a
45 RPM record of Storm's version of the old country composition "
Prisoner's Song"; the flip side was "Mama Mama Mama (Look What Your Little Boy's Done)." The release broke into the
Billboard Hot 100 and both songs became lifelong standards for Storm. Storm also served as a session drummer for Miller in the late 1950s and 1960s and appeared on dozens of
swamp blues sessions for
Excello by artists such as
Lazy Lester,
Lightnin' Slim,
Katie Webster, and
Lonesome Sundown. Over the following years Storm recorded swamp pop music for numerous labels, including Rocko, Zynn, American Pla-Boy, Top Rank, and
Dot. In the early 1960s he teamed up with fellow swamp pop musicians
Rod Bernard and Skip Stewart to form The Shondells, performing with the group and cutting tracks on the La Louisianne label until The Shondells disbanded around 1970. Meanwhile, Storm released songs on several more labels, including
ATCO, Sincere, and Teardrop, and, later, Premier, Showtime, Starflite, and Jin, among others. It was during this period that Storm recorded two more regional favorites, "Lord I Need Somebody Bad Tonight" and "My House of Memories". During the 1980s and '90s, Storm appeared as a regular house musician at several south Louisiana danceclubs, and in 1989 recorded the
Cajun Born LP for La Louisianne with fellow south Louisiana musicians
Rufus Thibodeaux, Johnnie Allan, and Clint West. ==Resurgence of popularity==