Back to New Orleans

I'm back in New Orleans for another chance to enjoy the city's unique music, food and culture. The weather is hot and sunny despite a damaging hurricane Milton coming on shore in Florida. On the flight over I watched Soulsville USA, a new four part series chronicling the rise and eventual fall of Stax. It features lots of footage I haven't seen before and interviews with everyone from Carla Thomas, co founder Jim Stewart and David Porter to Deanie Parker who saw it all from the inside. Part 1 covers the early days with Rufus and Carla, the second segment covers the emergence and death of Otis Redding, part 3 charts the label's comeback under Al Bell while the final episode covers Wattstax and the financial problems that led to the label's demise. Highly recommended.

i met up with Ron Cook at the St James Hotel on Magazine St and we spent our first day wandering along Decatur St to Frenchmens, which is looking run down, and back via Royale St. On the evening we went to Chickie Wah Wah to see English exile Jon Cleary do a solo show. Jon is a brilliant exponent of New Orleans style piano and he performed songs by Dr John, who was his first major influence, James Booker and Professor Longhair along with boogie woogie and blues numbers. Among them were superbly executed versions of 'Such A Night', 'Lonely Lonely Nights' 'Lawdy Miss Clawdy' and 'I Feel So Good' and he recounted stories about his first meeting with Dr John in London and his first New Orleans show at the Maple Leaf. Despite his roots Jon is a true New Orleans institution who is keeping the piano style of the city alive.

From there we took a Uber to the Dew Drop Inn, a New Orleans institution which reopened in February after being closed for many years. Founded in 1939 the Dew Drop was the City's major black music venue with artists like Guitar Slim and Earl King performing there. Today the place has a small museum and a weekly jam session featuring local African American singers and musicians. I wouldn't say that all the music was to my taste but the atmosphere was great and you could easily imagine how the place would have been in its heyday.