In 2008, writer/musician Ned Sublette interviewed the late Coco Robicheaux for Bomb Magazine. In it, he speculates on how Dr. John came to sing Coco’s name in “I Walk on Guilded Splinters”: There’s a spot on “I Walk on Guilded Splinters,” the track that put Dr. John on the map in 1967, where you can [...]
Tag Archives: history
The Noise Goes on Forever: A History of New Orleans Noise Ordinances
January 1, 2011 – 12:12 am
The August 2, 1838 issue of the New Orleans Picayune is only four pages long. Much of that length is taken up by advertisements extolling the virtues of anti-venereal disease tonics, and/ or promising rewards for the return of runaway slaves. Nestled in the left column of page two is a one-paragraph editorial, the author [...]
Louis Prima Centennial Colloquium
December 10, 2010 – 2:48 pm
Louis Prima, the great New Orleans singer, trumpeter and entertainer, would be 100 years old this year, and as part of the ongoing celebrations of his legacy, Tulane University is hosting a free public colloquium this Saturday, December 11, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Freeman Auditorium. After an opening speech from Tulane’s [...]
A Sense of Place
April 8, 2010 – 8:03 am
I’m reading Harold Battiste’s autobiography, Unfinished Blues, and he writes about growing up across the street from the Dew Drop Inn. Yesterday as I drove by the Dew Drop on my way to work, that knowledge made the neighborhood seem a little more alive with possibility. How many other musicians lived within 10 or so [...]
Bruce Boyd Raeburn, New Orleans Style and the Writing of American Jazz History (University of Michigan Press)
April 1, 2010 – 12:01 am
It is no secret to musicians trying to play New Orleans jazz for a living that jazz writers have agendas, and that what passes for worthy in the jazz media often has little to do with the music. This fine book is for these souls, and for anyone with an interest in New Orleans music [...]
The Other Side
March 4, 2010 – 10:32 am
In a blog post elsewhere on this site, Jan Ramsey writes about the need to memorialize the important sites in New Orleans’ musical history. I don’t mean to be contrarian, but I’m not sure why. It might just be me, but I remember in my youth visiting the homes of famous American authors in the [...]
Street Music
September 1, 1991 – 12:01 am
…A stranger to New Orleans…upon entering the square finds the multitude packed in groups of close, narrow circles, and in the center of each circle sits a musician… —Henry Edward Durell, 1853. Street music. A singular phrase, yet multifaceted; a phrase fraught with resonance, taunt as cat gut, redolent with the vibrato of centuries. A [...]
