Innovative Dr. John changed music
Dr. John, aka Mac Rebennack, is among an impressive group of piano players from New Orleans, including Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, James Booker and Allen Toussaint.
Some might be surprised to learn the 68-year-old Rebennack began his career as a guitar player. Although he’s a little fuzzy on the details, he said he was a teenager when he made his first South Shore appearance, filling in for a guitarist who couldn’t make the show.
BackTalk with Papa MaliGuitarist Malcolm “Papa Mali” Welbourne made his reputation in Texas with the Austin-based Killer Bees; in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he grew up; and in New Orleans, where he went every summer to visit his grandparents. The dreadlocked axeman has hovered on the margins of New Orleans’ music scene for years, playing with the Radiators on one gig and Galactic on another. His 2007 solo release Do Your Thing, produced by Dan Prothero for Fog City, the San Francisco label central to Galactic’s development, is a classic New Orleans session—all rhythmic nuance and deep, grainy textures. The basic tracks were recorded in New Orleans at Truck Farm Studios with a core band that consisted of Papa Mali, Robb Kidd on drums, Kirk Joseph on sousaphone, Henry Butler on piano and Big Chief Monk Boudreaux on vocals and percussion. Mali’s approach to the New Orleans tradition is perfectly articulated on the otherworldly evocation of Mardi Gras dawn, “Early in the Morning,” with the Golden Eagles Mardi Gras Indians and Reverend Goat Carson throwing down an awesome chant.
New Orleans piano style: As explained by Jon ClearyNY Post: The Big Easy Is BackNew Orleans is no longer struggling to recover from Hurricane Katrina. Instead, the Crescent City is alive and kicking—and the place for upscale travelers to visit this winter.
That renaissance makes New Orleans the hottest destination du jour. Although "80 percent of the city was flooded," at one point, according to Mary Beth Romig, director of communications for the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention and Visitors Bureau, the devastation was a call to arms for many New Orleans natives to reinvest in their beloved Big Easy.
Eric Lindell, "Low on Cash, Rich in Love" (2008) 
Unless you're Eric Lindell, a native of San Mateo, Calif., who not only aspires to a Van Morrison/Delbert McClinton-level of outsider R&B glory, but blends in enough funk and swamp pop from his one-time adopted home of New Orleans to make it sound new. ("Low on Cash, Rich in Love" was recorded and mixed at the city's Piety Street studios.) No surprise, then, that Lindell's horn-driven groove can be mistaken, at first, for a party record. But there is a notable depth, and a rare authenticity, across "Low on Cash" -- principally because of Lindell's ferocious talents as a writer, singer, harp blower and guitar picker. That helps him to synthesize a rootsy and mature soundscape into this cohesive sophomore effort for Alligator, one which moves with thrilling ease across influences as diverse as Curtis Mayfield and Little Feat over to the Meters and Sam Cooke.
More on Allen Toussaint’s forthcoming album
While Toussaint has always known material like “West End Blues” and “St. James Infirmary,” he admits that, as a performer, “I hadn’t tackled them on my own. ‘Tackle’ is a bad word—I hadn’t caressed them on my own, except to listen from time to time in passing. Even the gigs that I’ve done during my gigging days, I was playing whatever was on the radio at the time, boogie-ing and woogie-ing and the like. I hadn’t been through this standard bag. I always loved those songs, but I had never been in a setting where that is what I would do for a while. Until now.”
SEND A PRESERVATION HALL VIDEO VALENTINE CARD TO THOSE YOU LOVE 
CLICK HERE to send a Preservation Hall Video Valentine Card to your Sweethearts on Valentine's Day! The emailable valentine card features the Preservation Hall Hot 4 Music Video 'I Can't Give you Anything But Love". The Valentine will be delivered to your sweet recipient on Valentine's Day.
First CD Since 2000 by Cyril Neville
A new CD by Cyril Neville is coming out April 7 on M.C. Records called Brand New Blues. Cyril wrote or co-wrote most of the songs on the CD. Special guests include Art Neville, Ivan Neville, Waylon Thibodeaux & Tab Benoit. The project was produced by Brian J of Pimps of Joytime. This marks Cyril’s first release since 2000.
VARIOUS ARTISTS / “Classic New Orleans Mixtape”
This week we feature 44 songs from a four-CD, 119 track, box set called Crescent City Soul – The Sound of New Orleans 1947 – 1974. It was the “Official CD Collection of the 1996 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.” Unfortunately, it is out of print—“unfortunately” because this is the best single collection of classic New Orleans R&B ever assembled and it doesn’t even come close to including everything. There’s no Neville Brothers, only one track from The Meters, no Chocolate Milk, no Allen Toussaint, no secondline music, only one Mardi Gras song, no Mardi Gras Indians, and only one song that references “The Popeye” (a New Orleans dance that produced a bevy of recordings) yet, even considering all that is not included, this collection is leagues better than whatever is a distant second collection.
Carencro soul singer Marc Broussard vows to 'Keep Coming Back'
One sign of Marc Broussard's career advancement: Jay Leno now pronounces the Carencro native's name correctly.
Introducing Broussard's 2004 "Tonight Show" debut, Leno stumbled over the singer's surname, then tried to atone with a faux-Cajun accent. When Broussard returned in October to sing "Keep Coming Back, " the title track of his current album, Leno greeted him with a warm, "Welcome back, buddy. Good to see you again."
Broussard's forward progress is hard won. A formidable set of pipes -- equal parts Joe Cocker, Otis Redding and Brian McKnight -- and early breaks catapulted him out of southwest Louisiana. He's since logged many miles and confronted the music industry at its most callous.
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