the ’Zine

New Orleans Rock Blog

May 7, 2008 by Brett Milano

I'm standing on a muddy field in New Orleans during the final set of this year's Jazz & Heritage Festival, watching one of the city's flagship bands, the Radiators, do a funkafied version of Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire." And there is no way in the world that I'm about to move from this spot. Not because the band is great, though they are; and not because the sunset is gorgeous, though it is. The real reason I'm not moving is that fresh mud in Louisiana is exactly like quicksand, and I'm up to my ankles.

That still ranks with the most emotional musical events I've been to.

It goes without saying that anyone who visits New Orleans nowadays has no right to complain about a little water. And the city's annual music binge, the Jazz & Heritage Festival (which despite the name, features rock, jazz, funk, R&B and almost everything else) has continued on without interruption. The 2006 festival happened just six months after Katrina, when tourists had to drive past rows of demolished houses and abandoned cars to reach the fairgrounds. That still ranks with the most emotional musical events I've been to; a three-day mix of healing songs, righteous anger and joys of the moment. One of that year's headliners, Bruce Springsteen, capped things off with a version of "My City of Ruins" that combined all of the above.

That show was a reminder that music in New Orleans has always been a spiritual thing; and that remained the case at this year's festival. Not that there wasn't a load of fun involved: During my seven-day trip to the Crescent City last week I witnessed a couple of the most drunken performances I've seen (the bands, not myself), stepped over some very enthused Jimmy Buffett fans, and finally learned, via old-school R&B legend Archie Bell, how to do the "Tighten Up." Some of my all-time favorites were in town, including Elvis Costello and genius UK guitarist Richard Thompson. And I attended the midweek event known as the Ponderosa Stomp—a night of vintage R&B and garage rock; and a Mecca for record geeks the world over.

New Orleans is alive, but still struggling.

Still, the context remains hard to miss. New Orleans is alive, but still struggling; and there are hundreds of musicians who haven't come home yet because their neighborhoods don't exist. While there was a good share of celebration at the festival, there wasn't a lot of denial. Most of the local artists are checking in with Katrina-themed songs: Sometimes they're angry and sometimes they're about coming back to life.

Local bluesman Walter Wolfman Washington — a hulking bearded guy whose nickname you'd understand when you see him — was the first artist to play music after Katrina; in November of '05 he played a club that was still powered by a portable generator. This year he had a new song whose chorus went, "I'm back—Where you at?" On a more somber note, Stevie Wonder brought local R&B diva Irma Thomas on stage to do an unrehearsed duet, "Shelter in the Rain." And Robert Plant played as part of a duo tour with country artist Alison Krauss; one of the Led Zeppelin songs they reworked for the occasion was "When the Levee Breaks." They didn't change any lyrics or make any speeches for the occasion; they didn't need to.

The locals were out as well, and the city's music scene is full of larger-than-life characters, from the local superstars (Aaron Neville played his hometown for the first time since the hurricane) to the neighborhood crews who spend a year making costumes to mask as Mardi Gras Indians—strictly a New Orleans thing that can't be translated. I saw great bar bands like Dash Rip Rock (whose hardcore-punk version of "Jambalaya" needs to be heard to be believed) and the soulful gentleman Allen Toussaint, who wrote a few of the city's anthems ("Fortune Teller" and "Working in a Coal Mine") and now collaborates with Elvis Costello. I had a week of total musical immersion, and I have the muddy sneakers to prove it.

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