Issue Articles
Anders Osborne Talks Back
Anders Osborne moved to New Orleans from his native Sweden when he was 19 and never looked back. Sixteen albums and four decades later, Osborne is a legacy New Orleans artist set to headline Jazz Fest for the 35th year in a row. His new album, Picasso’s Villa (5th Ward/Missing Piece) is out this month.
Teacher, Musician and Thinker: Branford Marsalis is coming home
In late January the Grammy-winning saxophonist and composer, Branford Marsalis, announced he was returning to his native New Orleans where he will serve as artistic director of The Ellis Marsalis Center for Music (EMCM) in the upper Ninth Ward. The center is named after the patriarch of the Marsalis family who held the artistic director position until his death in 2020 from complications of the Covid-19 virus.
Living That Vison: Singer-Songwriter Lynn Drury Endures To Open A New Chapter
Years ago, Lynn Drury pedaled her bicycle along the narrow streets of the French Quarter. Moments into her ride she stopped and realized that, 20 years ago, she had a vision of exactly what she was doing that day. “I remember thinking, ‘I’m living that vision’” she said.
Reclaiming Roots: Loose Cattle took 10 years, two cities and one pandemic to lock into place
The New Orleans band’s earliest roots are in New York City where the two principals—Kimberly Kaye and Michael Cerveris—got together to play cover songs to blow off steam and keep the flame of their relationship burning. An album of cover songs, and a Christmas record followed. It only took a breakup, a personal health crisis, an eventual relocation to New Orleans, a new rhythm section, a pandemic, and a lot more confidence writing original songs for Loose Cattle to emerge wholly new. The band’s forthcoming self-titled album of largely all originals, marks the occasion.
Reinventing Cajun Traditions: With Louis Michot you never know what to expect
In the days when Covid-19 was raging, Louis Michot often woke up before dawn and walked the land surrounding his home in Prairie Des Femmes, outside Arnaudville, just north of Lafayette. That’s when the songs came calling.
Steve Miller’s Musical Garden
Steve Miller was a mainstay of commercial radio in the 1970s based on his steady flow of endurable hits—“The Joker,” “Livin’ in the USA,” “Take the Money and Run,” “Rock’n Me,” “Fly Like an Eagle,” “Jet Airliner,” “Jungle Love,” and “Abracadabra” among them. But most people may not know that his musical roots go beyond the psychedelic rock sound he honed with the Steve Miller Band.
