NolaFunk Lagniappe

Dr. John: Chicken Gumbo For The Soul

NPR has named Dr. John's “You Might Be Surprised” (from his new CD The City That Care Forgot) as its “Song of the Day,” praising the doctor’s “grizzled, gumbo-soaked voice” (sigh — “gumbo-soaked”? Is that like “whiskey-soaked”?).

Andre Williams & The New Orleans Hellhounds: Can You Deal With It?

At age 72, Chicago’s “Mr. Rhythm” is showing no signs of slowing down. Popping up on the American soul scene in the mid-1950s, Andre Williams scored a number of small-time hits such as “Bacon Fat” and “Jail Bait” for Detroit’s Fortune Records. Through the 1960s and ‘70s he supplemented his career as a Chess Records recording artist by writing and producing material for Stevie Wonder, Ike and Tina, and Parliament/Funkadelic.

his time around, Mr. Rhythm teams up with the “alcoholic miscreants” of the Morning 40 Federation. Known here as the New Orleans Hellhounds, this rollicking ten-piece really is more beast than band. Over 33 minutes and nine cuts, Can You Deal With It? is a sleaze rock mud bath. Stylistically, you get the works. Whether it’s hot-rodded R&B, a woozy hangover ballad, or just some good old-fashioned front porch country, this album’s got just about everything you can cram under the garage rock umbrella.


Hot 8 Brass Band of New Orleans




The Eighth Annual Satchmo SummerFest Is back at theOld US Mint


Widespread Panic to Celebrate Halloween in New Orleans

These shows mark the group’s return to New Orleans for Halloween after a six-year absence. Widespread Panic performed in the Big Easy on or around Halloween each fall from 1997-2002.

Guitarist Jimmy Robinson flies solo on new CD

Throughout his long career with rock-fusion band Woodenhead and guitar collective Twangorama, the electric guitar has served as Jimmy Robinson's main ax.

To hear selected tracks from this release, click HERE.

In New Orleans, The Sound Never Sets: Music of every melodic shade.

From the Treme Brass Band in full swing among the baggage carousels at Louis Armstrong Airport to small venues where performers sometimes outnumber spectators, the Big Easy is America’s easiest place to see music of every melodic shade. As a summer destination, it merits consideration: Satchmo SummerFest starts next week. But for me, NOLA sounds best during Jazz Fest.

John Ellis: Son Of A Preacher Man

So how was that experience different from going down to New Orleans?

I didn’t really start playing jazz in any way that makes any sense until I went to New Orleans. New Orleans was the beginning of my experience with jazz. But the school was pretty disorganized by what I had been through already. And there were all these opportunities to play, you can think of New Orleans as a kind of big school. And I really started to plat a lot, and it was a community of musicians that had a lot of the same interests, we were all kind of aspiring towards a similar thing. Nicholas Payton is just about a year older than me, he was down there trying to find his record deal. And he was really influential because his talent was so unbelievable, even back then. He influenced the whole scene down there in that era. And there was a lot of informal… that actually doesn’t exist there anymore either, it was an amazing time. There were all these informal gigs, we played for tips, a couple regular gigs that were every Tuesday and every Saturday. We played for tips, it was like a jazz session basically. All the musicians were really good.

Tom Morgan’s New Orleans Music Show #10

WWOZ-FM, New Orleans: Tuesday, January 1, 2008

Tom Morgan celebrates New Year’s Day 2008 on WWOZ-FM, New Orleans, with a brilliant panorama of New Orleans music by Louis Armstrong and piano professors Jelly Roll Morton, Tom McDermott, Clarence Williams, Armand Hug, Tuts Washington, Dave Paquette & David Torkanowsky, and Josh Paxton.

Zip and de Doo Da’s

Eddie Zip was one of these guys who was around in the 60s when black R and B was rolling in New Orleans. Unlike a lot of the white population, he wasn’t scared to get to know and associate with black artists. Eddie’s main axe is the piano and, as I say sometimes, “man, that cat can JUMP!” He’s comes from the same influences as the best New Orleans piano guys in town: Professor Longhair, Dr. John, John Cleary, Joe Crown, Huey Smith, Allen Toussaint…

He’s the real deal.