The Circle Bar, formerly known as Fleur de Lee, the Colonial Room, Traveler’s Post (after Robert E. Lee’s faithful steed, Traveler) and Lee’s Bar (back in the days when a homicide was committed on the premises), is one of New Orleans’ coziest places to hear music. If 50 people are in the joint, it’s packed. When Hank Williams III requested p.a. monitors, Circle Bar proprietress Kelly Keller assured him: “Hey, you don’t need them!”

Kelly opened the club in September of 1999 with four partn...