Backatown

Here’s Kid Ory’s version of Eh, La Bas. 1946.

Corey Harris - “Eh La Bas”. 1999. I first heard his rendition of this traditional tune on the excellent  Greens from the Garden.

And here’s the Tuxedo Jazz Band doing “Just a Closer Walk With Thee”, live in Germany, 1964.

Ernie K. Doe. Here Come the Girls. 1970. Produced by Allen Toussaint, obvi.

Professor Longhair - “Cry to Me”. From 1980’s Crawfish Fiesta. That’s Dr. John on guitar.

Professor Longhair - Crawfish Fiesta. 1980. From the album of the same name.

jscarlton:

Mahalia Jackson is the second greatest of New Orleans musicians, behind only Louis Armstrong. Because she sung in a niche genre, the Queen of Gospel has remained relatively unknown.

This version of Silent Night illustrates what a powerful voice Jackson had and reveals her great command and musicality. She almost plays with the melody, transforming a song that has become trite (although it probably wasn’t she recorded this) into something different, something special. It’s so, so good.

I guess the best thing I can say is that Mahalia Jackson’s singing is so good that it makes up for the cheesy arrangements that pollute her Christmas albums.

jscarlton:

Benny Grunch and the Bunch, the 12 Yats of Christmas

I could listen to unlimited numbers of (more or less) well-done novelty versions of the 12 days of Christmas. This one is, of course a favorite, as is the 12 Pains of Christmas and whatever you call this.

Benny Grunch and the Bunch are a novelty act that pops up around town every few years with songs like this one. Another of their hits is the subtle-but-true “There Ain’t No Place to Pee on Mardi Gras Day”.

This video is from some time in the 1990s, and is interesting because so many of the places in the video don’t exist anymore: K&B drug stores, A&G Cafeteria (which was gone before they filmed the video, notice the Picadilly), McKenzie’s bakery, the 17th Street Canal is still there, but now has tragic underpinnings, as does the lower 9th ward. Schwegmann’s was sold in 1996.

That’s fully half of the 12 Yats of Christmas that are gone or irrevocably changed, either due to economic insolvency or disaster. While I still enjoy the song as a celebration of the uniqueness of the city, there is now a sense of poignancy and loss, as I wonder about New Orleans in the future, and whether the unique institutions that make the city great will survive.

It’s enough to make a man drink a dix pack of Sixie.

jscarlton:

I love Christmas music, even though 85% of it is dreck. This year, I’m combatting the dreck with this lame feature I’m calling A NOLA Christmas. 12 days, 12 Christmas tunes from New Orleans-area artists, 12 write-ups that will be ultimately unsatisfying. Enjoy!

I had a few possible songs planned for today, depending on the outcome of today’s game. Well, the outcome came, and it wasn’t so hot.

So, here’s a tune by Greg Barnhill (who is more of a producer than anything) and the New Birth Brass Band. It’s a one-off novelty deal, but manages to be a credible brass band song, if you’re into that kind of thing. Barnhill actually sounds a lot like Lyle Lovett in places, for what that’s worth.

New Orleans seems to produce a lot of novelty music (there’s at least one more coming in this countdown). I think there are a couple of reasons for that. Primary among them is that New Orleans still has a local music tradition, and even the big radio stations will occasionally play at least some local music*.

*Although even that is dying off as Clear Channel et al. continue to homogenize music toward a mushy, unsatisfying middle.

A second reason is that New Orleans music lends itself to novelty songs for two reasons: (1) there’s a sense of playfulness and joy in most New Orleans music, and (2) New Orleans music is an old-fashioned music (even as much of it remains cutting edge), and novelty songs seemed to have been more popular in the early days of rock than it is now.

And, keeping with the theme of the week (that much of Christmas music is just an attempt to cash in on the holiday), I suppose that a Christmas novelty song is one of the best chances a local act has to actually get some air play and sell a few singles.

Regardless, Santa didn’t bring the wish this year, but I suppose we can still be content with the Super Bowl victory. Playoffs are around the corner, anyway, and that’s a whole new ballgame, y’all.

A few years ago I posted a bunch of NOLA Christmas tunes on my rarely updated main site. I’ll reblog a few of the tunes here, because why not?

jscarlton:

A NOLA Christmas 2

I love Christmas music, even though 85% of it is dreck. This year, I’m combatting the dreck with this lame feature I’m calling A NOLA Christmas. 12 days, 12 Christmas tunes from New Orleans-area artists, 12 write-ups that will be ultimately unsatisfying. Enjoy!

The Zion Harmonizers are a venerable New Orleans gospel group that has been around in various incarnations since the 1939. Sort of a New Orleans version of the Blind Boys of Alabama, but without being from Alabama or, well, blind. I guess the similarity stops at the music, then.

I don’t know a ton about this group; I’ve seen them at Jazz Fest a couple of times and they play (or used to, anyway) a gospel brunch every week at the House of Blues. But they do show the diversity of New Orleans music: New Orleans has a grand tradition of gospel music (and don’t worry, Mahalia Jackson is coming), but it tends to get lost in the shuffle of everything else. I used to love to listen to the gospel show Sunday mornings on ‘OZ…such singers!

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I attended an Episcopal school in New Orleans, and we had a 20-minute chapel service every day. It wasn’t that big of a deal: march in, sing a hymn, listen to a sermon, sing again, go about your day. I remember a few things about those services (like snickering with my friends at lines like “blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord”), but I especially remember the “hymn sings”.

A few times a year, we wouldn’t have a sermon or a prayer or anything, we’d just sing hymns. I don’t know if it was because the priest couldn’t come up with a sermon for that day or what…more likely it was because everyone loved the hymn sings. Everyone except the teachers, administrators, or any other adults in earshot, I suppose.

The process was simple: students would raise their hand and, when called upon, pick a hymn from the hymnal. We’d sing it. Rinse, repeat, etc.

The funny thing about the hymn sings was that it seems like we always picked the same songs to sing. Every. Single. Time. “If I Were a Butterfly”, “Onward Christian Soldiers”, and “Go, Tell it on the Mountain”. Never anything different. If I’d been a teacher, I’d of had to fake going into labor or something to avoid hearing the same songs, sung poorly, once again.

I don’t know why no one ever raised their hand and called out a totally random hymn that no one knew. I mean, that would be funny right? Why didn’t someone do this? Little Boxes, I suppose.

So, here’s “Go Tell it On The Mountain”, sung much better than we did in chapel.