OffBeat on the Spot

We were as curious as everybody else was about Spotify, the online music service, and so far we’ve enjoyed hunting around the back corners of its music library to see what’s there. (Thanks to saxophonist James Martin, who turned us on to Funk Hits, a 2005 collection of Brazilian dancehall we never would have found on our own).

For those of you on Spotify, we’ve started a collaborative playlist, “OffBeat Reader Favorites,” an updatable playlist of New Orleans and Louisiana music. We’d love to have you help build it, but do so with the spirit of discovery that we hope is a characteristic of this list. We’re trying to avoid the greatest hits, instead aiming for cool tracks that have been unjustly overlooked, such as Eddie Bo’s “Fence of Love” or Dave Bartholomew’s “Shrimp & Gumbo.” My two most recent additions to the playlist are Bobby Marchan’s “Rockin’ Behind the Iron Curtain” and Champion Jack Dupree’s “Vietnam Blues” (which you’ve got to hear if you haven’t already). If you’ve found cool tracks from New Orleans and Louisiana that our readers need to know about, feel free to add them.