Jimmy Robinson.
All New Orleans musicians have a story. Jimmy Robinson wants to hear them.
The Twangorama guitarist’s Musicworks Series features a guest musician every Thursday night at the Carrollton Station starting in September, and Robinson hopes to take audiences behind the scenes of their favorite local musicians and expose them to information not easily found at a club or concert.
“Basically we’re doing it as a performance/interview series with a lot of really good New Orleans musicians,” Robinson says. “We’re going to play music by guests and some of my stuff in collaboration. We’re going to talk about their influences, how they learned how to play, songwriting, the creative process, things about their lives, whatever they want to talk about.”
Robinson credits Elvis Costello’s Spectacle show, which follows a similar format of interviews and musical collaboration between artists, as his inspiration behind the Musicworks Series. Robinson previously attempted a collaboration series as part of Twangorama with “Seriously Twisted Guitar.” Despite the success surrounding the series, Twangorama set it aside and never picked back up.
“I think just two people in an acoustic environment will be less labor intensive,” Robinson says. “There are so many great people and so many of these guys I go way back with. I remember different bands they were in and when they were starting.” The lineup for September features artists including Spencer Bohren, John Gros (Papa Grows Funk), Mark Mullins (Bonerama) and June Yamagishi (Papa Grows Funk).
“I have friendships that go back with these people, some are relatively new, but some, like Spencer Bohren, we did gigs together with different bands that we were in probably in 1982—way the hell back.
“There are so many great stories, so many great gigs and episodes, interesting things about all of these people. I’m hoping the Station will take to it. I think that they will because it’s something you don’t usually get. You hear somebody at a gig, you learn some stuff, but you’ll really go below the surface.”
