Sweeney's Gumbo YaYa

Day of Dead Show Remembers Lost Ones

To understand life, we need to understand death. This week’s show remembers my lost loved ones and invites you to do the same. Here’s the show with more details below.

As the story about “At the Foot of Canal Street” goes, singer/songwriters John Boutte and Paul Sanchez discovered that their fathers were buried in the same cemetery not far from where Canal Street and the Mississippi River meet. From that shared well of history, the song that starts this show sprang.

tim-michael-backpack-001 — Remembering my brother Michael who graduated from Tulane and played guitar for a flamenco band in the French Quarter.

In introducing this week’s show, I talk briefly about my older brother Michael who died this year and my father who died 40 years ago in July. I invite listeners to remember their lost loved ones as the show progresses. The first set features spirituals by Glen David Andrews, Kid Thomas and his Algiers Stompers, and Irvin Mayfield with Davell Crawford.

One of the most interesting New Orleans standards about death is St. James Infirmary, which if you read my earlier blog post, you’ll find has nothing to do with New Orleans other than Louis Armstrong was one of the first to record this mash up of folk songs. It seemed fitting to pair Armstrong’s still amazing version of that song with Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint’s collaboration that channels Professor Longhair, “Ascension Day.” You also get a repeat performance by Paul Sanchez, this time with his song, “Life is a Ride.”

This show also features a brief description of jazz funeral and the two “Laveau” dirges by Trombone Shorty featured on his last album. Henry Butler, who died this year, performs “Down by the Riverside” and the Neville Brothers, in honor of Charles Neville’s death this year, do “River of Life.”

This show also includes Linnzi Zaorski’s “Better Off Dead” and Taylor Smith’s “When I’m Dead,” I hope you enjoy the show. My goal is to provide uplift rather than sadness. And please subscribe so you know when new shows are posted. Thank you.

Audio slideshow of latest trip to New Orleans

I miss the days when my Dad would pull out the slide projector and set up the screen and we’d look at the slides of our last vacation. Well, get my show started and you’ll hear an audio slideshow of my trip to New Orleans last week.

Since this show was part of the KAOS pledge drive, I have the honor of Anch Bergeson, host of Sundrenched, and Vertis Love, host of Old Ship of Zion (KAOS shows) as company. I kept our discussion of New Orleans but edited out the pledge requests. However, if you want to support our community radio station, its easy to do.

For West Coast visitors, there’s a nice alignment for catching Rebirth Brass Band at the Maple Leaf Bar on Tuesday nights. Usually, flights are cheaper on Tuesday and the two-hour time change helps in terms of staying up late enough to see this venerable band that usually doesn’t start performing until after 10:30 p.m. This show recognizes how I started last week’s trip with Rebirth’s “Who’s Rockin’, Who’s Rollin”

My next set portrays our ride on the Natchez boat down the Mississippi, an easy and fun tourist activity and I feature two bands we saw later in the day at clubs on Frenchmen Street (Bon Bon Vivant and Tin Men).

I do a set featuring coffee because my wife, Kim, still raves about the cup of coffee she had at Morning Call located at City Park. Most tourists get their cafe au lait at Cafe du Monde in the French Quarter. Morning Call used to be there but now they have a wonderful place at City Park. I finish the set with a Corey Henry song because we ended the day at Vaughan’s in the Bywater for his weekly late Thursday night performance.

Lena Prima, Louis’ daughter, is a wonderful performer with an excellent band and a crowd-pleasing songbook. She holds court in the Carousel Room of the Monteleone Hotel every Friday night. I play “Scuba Diver” off her live album which pretty accurately captures the music but to catch the antics, you’ll have to wait for my narrative after that set.

I caught up with Helen Gillet at the Courtyard Brewery’s fourth anniversary party and she gave me her latest release and I play “You Found Me.” Charles Sheffield “It’s Your Voodoo Working” and Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown’s “Swamp Ghost” symbolize the Krewe of Boo parade we caught.

It took some deciphering but we figured out how to catch up with the Men of Luck’s Second Line parade on Sunday. Cyril Neville’s “Running with the Second Line.” capture that feeling.

streetcar second line2.jpg — Men of Luck Social Aid and Pleasure Club parade hits St. Charles Street

Hot 8 Brass Band release includes NOLA Banksy art

The name Banksy is world known now after one of his pieces self-shredded during its auction recently. But the anonymous English street artist was hardly a household name when the Hot 8 Brass Band included his art on 2012 CD release “The Life and Times of . ” Get the show started and then read on.

banksy2 — Banksy street art that appeared in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and feature don the 2012 Hot 8 Brass Band release

Banksy, whose art has appeared on walls throughout the world, visited New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and his work captured the community’s affection. Abraham Lincoln pushing a shopping cart, a little girl flying a refrigerator and a brass band marching down the street. In today’s show, I play “Ghost Town” off the Hot 8 release.

But before you get to that song, you’ll hear Seattle-area musician, Del Rey, performing “Going Back to New Orleans,” Champion Jack Dupree with “Yella Pocahontas,” Charmaine Neville and the Iguanas. To name a few.

Tank and the Bangas, who will be performing in Seattle and Portland in November, are on this show as well doing “Rollercoaster” Live at Gasa Gasa and Kermit Ruffins performs “If I Only Had a Brain.”

I also feature an early R&B set with Little Richard, Leo Price and Huey “Piano” Smith and the Clowns. Thanks for tuning and please subscribe so you can be informed of when new shows are available.

banksy

Piano, Scat and Blues for this week’s show

Champion Jack Dupree scats through this week’s opening number with “Skit Skat” from his 1991 Rounder release, Forever and Ever. While he lived over 30 years in Europe, Dupree learned his piano in New Orleans. Later in the show, Jon Cleary sings ” Hit, Git, Quit, Split.” For right now, I hope you just “hit” the show’s start button and forget the rest of his advice.

Dr. Michael White (clarinet) and Matt Perrine (sousaphone) add the New Orleans feel to Portland-based blues guitarist Mary Flower’s hilarious rendition of “Main Street Blues” to start the first full set. She’s followed by a Boswell Sister cover energetically performed live at the New Orleans Mint by Bon Bon Vivant (“Shout Sister, Shout).

From his latest release Dyna-Mite, Cleary kicks off the second full set which is anchored by Glen David Andrews performing the “Brothers Johnson Jam” at Three Muses. In later sets, John Lisi, Mem Shannon and Bonerama liven things up, along with Dash Rip Rock, Buddy Flett, and the Dirty River Bourbon Band. I hope you keep listening. Here’s the full playlist.

Dr. Ford and Joan Jett inspired Gumbo YaYa Show

I can’t imagine the courage it takes to sit in front of a national audience and talk about a painful past trauma, nor can I imagine the determination required to break into a male-dominated pop culture field. Start my show and read on about the two women who subconsciously affected this week’s show.

danielle nicole — Danielle Nicole, bass player and singer for Trampled by Turtles, has a solo career with early recordings hat feature New Orleans musicians.

No theme this week. I just selected some strong tracks and was getting them lined up on my Thursday morning show. But that was also the day that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford sat before a mostly male Senate panel and talked about a painful episode in her life that she still carries with her today. With the 24-hour news cycle bombarding me with the latest development, it was hard not to think about her and the courage such action takes.

Add that to my experience the night before where I had attended the premiere of the Joan Jett documentary, “Bad Reputation.” The story of Jett’s path as a female rocker was enlightening. It was because of her movie that I pulled from the KAOS blues shelf a neglected copy of Ghalia and Mama’s Boys to kick off the show. (Actually, I start with the Radiators but she’s the first one I introduce.)

And in the seething anger of the moment (I broadcast live on KAOS right after “Democracy Now” which on the day of my show reported on stories of women molested by men who got away with it), I picked the track “Hoodoo Evil Man”.

Singer/Songwriter/Rocker Ghalia is from Brussels but she recorded the song in New Orleans with Johnny Mastro and Mama’s Boys. That’s close enough for me. Also, in this week’s show, I play other female rockers including Danielle Nicole, who is from Kansas and was lead singer for Trampled by Turtles. Nicole did a release with Galactic drummer Stanton Moore and New Orleans blues-rocker Anders Osborne that included the song, “Didn’t Do You No Good.”

I didn’t set out to do a show focusing on women rockers and to be honest, this show is more spiced rather than infused with women performers. (About once a year, I do an exclusively female show. Here’s the last one.) But this show includes a new release by Kelcy Mae’s latest project, two tracks by Kara Grainger. Aurora Kneeland’s alter ego “Rory Danger and the Danger Dangers,” Gal Holiday, Albanie Falletta, the Original Pinettes, Rosie Ledet, and a rocking song by Irma Thomas.

Vinyl Gumbo! Can you hear the difference

If you long for LPs then this week’s show is for you. Over an hour of vinyl New Orleans music is waiting to be heard, just click the application below and get it spinning.

hirt fountain vinyl I still own the first CD player I bought for my stereo. And I love it. I love the ease of playing CDs. I love being able to quickly find the track I want to hear. I like being able to repeat tracks. I love how clean the sound is. I really don’t miss vinyl.

Yet, I still buy LPs. And you’ll hear some of them on this show, including Pete Fountain, Professor Longhair, Al Hirt, Willie Humphrey, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Beausoleil, Bunk Johnson, Louis Armstrong, Huey “Piano” Smith and John Mooney. Nothing like playing a continuous stream of LPs to appreciate the work of DJs before the digital era. It really is a lot more effort playing off of turntables.

But aside from the crackling of the needle contacting the surface, I really can’t tell the difference in the sound. Perhaps you will.

Also, on today’s show, I honor Eddie Bo’s birth anniversary. Noted perhaps mostly for his funk, Edwin Bocage was a piano player skilled in jazz and other music genre as well. He was also a talented builder, who even in his mid-70’s was active in rebuilding his home damaged by Hurricane Katrina. I play a couple of his lesser known numbers in today’s show along with a couple of new releases by Eric Lindell and Keith Stone along with a handful of contemporary female New Orleans artists to offer some gender balance wrapped in very fine music. Thanks for tuning in.

Celebrating Four Years of Gumbo YaYa

I love birthdays and so it was no surprise that I thoroughly enjoyed myself on today’s Anniversary show. I hope you enjoy listening to it. (Go ahead and click the arrow right below and get it started)

birthday-cake-four-candles-md Marcia Ball’s “The Party’s Still Going On,” which kicked off the show, totally fit my mood. In September of 2014 when the first Gumbo YaYa was recorded, I was a little nervous about how long I’d be able to sustain a show, aired in the Pacific Northwest, of strictly New Orleans music. After all, the KAOS air studio is more than 2,720 miles from Frenchmen Street).

But with the help and kindness of New Orleans musicians, music distributors and labels ike Basin Street Records, I’ve been getting some current music. I’m surprised how much variety the New Orleans format offers. And what particularly amazes me is how much I’ve learned in the last four years. (Several trips to New Orleans have helped — I like this hobby!).

On my bucket list for my next New Orleans visit is catching Lena Prima and her talented band in the Carousel Room of the Monteleone Hotel. Yes, its a total tourist thing but damn she does a great job, backed up by her band led by husband and bass player Tim Fahey. Early in today’s show, she pulls off a bit of a medley that starts as you might expect, then gets you and your body moving (guaranteed) by the end.

Got a phone call from a listener when I played The Wild Magnolia’s “Coochie Molly” a rocking song (thank you June Yamagishi on guitar) that dovetailed nicely in to the next track, the New Orleans Nightcrawlers live version of “Tchfuncta/On that Day.” That set finishes with Galactic’s “Wild Man” with chanting by Big Chief Bo Dollis. In fact, all three songs in that set feature chanting by Mardi Gras Indian Big Chiefs.

Another Big Chief performs later in the show but only on the saxophone — Donald Harrison Jr. backs up Davell Crawford in “River/White Socks & Drawers.” When he’s not playing jazz saxophone, Big Chief Donald Harrison Jr. is working on his next Mardi Gras suit. Oh, and before I forget, Dr. John and Big Freedia do some vocals on that Crawford song.

The show also features an in-studio performance (recorded earlier this summer) of “”Kibi” by Helen Gillet. I have other surprises, including a 12-minute live version of the oft-covered “Big Chief.” Thanks so much for putting up with these posts and shows for four years. As long as you don’t complain to management, I’m committed to ensuring that “The Party’s Still Going On,”

Katrina 13 year anniversary – What the hell!

Thirteen years since Hurricane Katrina destroyed the lives of over a thousand New Orleans residents, scattering survivors throughout the country. And yet, based on our abysmal response to the damage wrought by Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, we’ve learned little. Get this year’s annual Katrina recognition dedicated to Puerto Rico started.

katrina3 Shamarr Allen creates the intensity of a hurricane with the opening track of this show “Katrina and the Flood.” It’s become almost a tradition to play that song as well as Marva Wright’s heart-wrenching “The Levee is Breaking Down” which comes off her post-Katrina album, After the Levees Broke.

This year’s show features the KAOS premiere of “You and Me” a song written to dramatize the story of Tim Bruneau, a New Orleans police officer who was working when the levees broke. Bruneau found the body of 23-year-old Marie Latino after the hurricane had passed but before the city had started to flood. After several attempts to have the body picked up, he put her in the back seat of his car. But after failing to find a hospital to take the body, he was ordered to “undo” what he did. He placed Latino’s body in a body bag and returned it to where he found, where it floated on flood waters until it was picked up a few days later. The song is poignant and haunting. An autopsy later revealed that she had been shot instead of killed by the storm as originally believed.

Sonny Landreth song “Blue Tarp Blues” references President George Bush’s famous looking out from Air Force One and Marcia Ball sings Randy Newman’s ode to the 1927 Louisiana flood. I finish the show with Dee-1 and Shamarr Allen singing about the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico titled “Sorry Ain’t Enough No More.”

Rodents of Unusual Size, Jazz lightning & Willie

Area fires have clouded my eyes and I’m seeing rodents of unusual size. Start the show with James Andrews’ “Catch the Willie” and I’ll explain.

nutria The Northwest has been blanketed with smoke this week, perhaps playing tricks on my eyes. But there really are rodents of unusual size around in Washington and Oregon. I’m talking about nutria or Myocastor coypus — a semi-aquatic rodent that is native to South America but was introduced into the states as a potential fur-creating creature. As often happens though, the beast is just a nuisance now, creating a problem in Louisiana but also in the more temperate parts of Oregon and Washington. A documentary about them is getting screenings in the region including Olympia at the Capitol Theater (Olympia Film Society) on September 30 at 7:30 p.m. The director will be at the movie to take questions.

All this might be interesting to you (you haven’t stopped reading so far) but you might be asking what does it have to do with my show? Aside from giving my current home and my hometown something else in common, this week’s show includes “Norris the Nocturnal Nutria” by Benny Grunch & the Bunch. It’s sort of a Christmas song and its not very serious but it is in fact the only song I know of that even touches on the subject of coypus or nutria. That’s LARGELY it.

jazz-lightning

But before you get to that song, you’ll hear an awesome rendition of “Bill Bailey” by clarinetist and singer Doreen Ketchens who does a duet of the song with I believe her husband Lawrence who, in the course of the song, has been struck by “jazz lightning.” It really is quite good. Perhaps its playing right now if you started it when I asked you. If you didn’t, scroll back up and click the arrow.

Lots of other fun stuff follows but I’ll let you decide if its worth it. Cheers.

Two early R&B singers celebrated and “One Love”

As best as I can tell, Barbara George and Bobby Mitchell never recorded together but these two New Orleans R&B artists might have crossed paths while cutting records at J&M Studio (Cosimo Matassa). If they did, they might have noticed they had the same birthdays. Start the show and read on.

Born in Algiers on August 16, 1935, Bobby Mitchell was the second of 17 children and might have developed his singing ability just to get noticed among his sibling crowd. In 1950, Mitchell formed the first New Orleans doo wop group, The Toppers. Their first recording was in 1953 with “I’m Crying” and “Rack “Em Up.” Later, when that group was decimated by the draft, Mitchell recorded with a seven-piece with his biggest hit being “Try Rock ‘n’ Roll.” In 1957, he got on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand with “I’m Gonna Be a Wheel Someday” (you will hear that one on this show). But it was Fats Domino’s version that was a bigger hit. Mitchell suffered early heart problems and retired in the early 60’s. He became an x-ray technician at Charity Hospital and died on March 17, 1989. I start the show with Mitchell’s “Mama Don’t Allow” and later you’ll hear him singing “Sister Lucy.”

Barbara George was born in Charity hospital on August 16, 1942. Since she was younger, she didn’t get into the J&M studio until 1961, working under the guidance of Harold Battiste and AFO records. Her most recognizable song is the number 1 R&B song in its time, “I Know (You Don’t Love Me No More).” Later in 1961, AFO produced the one and only Barbara George album “I Know” featuring mostly songs she wrote. I play “I Know” and a song she recorded in 1968 with Eddie Bo’s help, “Something You Got.”

This show also features some reggae, including two versions Bob Marley’s “One Love” — the first by One Love Brass Band and the second one by The Nevilles performing live at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Speaking of Nevilles, Charmaine Neville and her band does a spacey number called “Rocket Nine” or “Rocket V” depending on whether you listen to the recording or read the liner notes.

As always, thanks for tuning in and let me know what you’d like to hear in the future. Cheers.