New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic Re-Releases All-Star Benefit Album

Ten years ago, a brand-new, struggling New Orleans Musicians Clinic (NOMC) produced and released an excellent fundraiser album, Get You A Healin’. The CD featured local heavy hitters like the Funky Meters, Allen Toussaint, Donald Harrison, Jr. (recording a tribute to his father, Big Chief Donald Harrison, Sr.), and even keyboard kings Dr. John and Art Neville performing a duet together. Each of the twelve songs somehow related to the theme of the NOMC, such as “Rockin’ Pneumonia & the Boogie Woogie Flu,” “Louisiana Medicine Man,” and “Virus Called the Blues.” More than just a musical success, the album provided a much-needed booster shot to the young Musicians’ Clinic.

Five years after Hurricane Katrina and the federal levee failure, the NOMC and the rest of New Orleans are again feeling under the weather. Money from post-Katrina grants to the clinic have almost dried up, and the city as a whole is fighting continual rampant crime, lingering effects of both Katrina and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and a changing economy that is reducing the already-scarce jobs in the city.

To help alleviate the situation, the NOMC has re-released the original Get You A Healin’ set in a special digital edition, this time with an extra ten newly-recorded tracks from the likes of B.B. King, Bonerama, Margie Perez and others, bringing the total songs on the album to 24. And yes, the new ten tracks stay within the health clinic theme.

You can preview and buy the album from Amazon using the widget below, or visit the New Orleans Musicians’ Clinic website to purchase from iTunes. Proceeds go to the clinic and the hundreds of local musicians who benefit from their assistance. You don’t have to do it just to be nice—it’s a great album!