Ben Sandmel’s book, Ernie K-Doe: The R&B Emperor of New Orleans, is due out this month, published by the Historic New Orleans Collection. In this excerpt, Sandmel examines K-Doe’s impact on people. K-Doe’s glory year, 1961, climaxed in December in a tour of Jamaica with fellow pop and R&B stars the Shirelles, Big [...]
Writer Ben Sandmel was the final drummer and manager of the Hackberry Ramblers. Today, he wrote: Guitarist, singer and emcee Glen Croker, the last surviving old-time member of the Hackberry Ramblers, passed away on August 23 in Lake Charles, Louisiana at age 77 following a lengthy illness. Born in Lake Charles in 1934, Croker began [...]
Barry Ancelet is a worthy recipient indeed for a Lifetime Achievement Award in Music Education. For the past three decades, Ancelet has stood tall as a leading figure in the late 20th-Century renaissance of South Louisiana’s indigenous French culture and language, in general, and a champion of Cajun and Creole music in particular. Ancelet’s important [...]
Amidst the cavalcade of corporate clones that typify the record business, Rounder Records has carved a distinctive niche as a unique, diverse and successful independent outfit. Rounder’s rich catalog includes New Orleans R&B and brass band jazz, Cajun music and zydeco, bluegrass and old time country, reggae, blues, African music, contemporary and historic folk, modern [...]
Imagine a mostly-free festival where you can hear master drummers from the African nation of Burundi, watch medieval Belgian stilt-dancers, listen to voodoo-influenced music from Haiti, dance to Caribbean zouk bands and Arabian rock groups, see the latest in films and artwork from France, and much, much more—surrounded all the while by great food from [...]
Mardi Gras, to say the least, presents a wild flood of sensory input. The varied sources of stimuli include garish floats, exotic and erotic costumes, over-indulgence of all sorts, rituals and ritual objects, the omnipresent “Carnival colors” of green, purple and gold, and much, much more. And amidst all this commotion, one especially rich component [...]
