The exact connection is murky though I have a sense of it. On Sunday evening I meandered over to Peterson Dumesnil to hear a duo perform from the porch to a smattering of wine drinking folks. As I told some good friends I ran into, “When I read ‘New Orleans inspired,’ I was like a […]
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So, yeah, the heat is hot, humiture is on the rise. It’s time for my favorite summer album on the box, thirty five minutes of respite from the heat and wackomundoness about in the world. And you know a hit of solid New Orleans vibe. Allen Toussaint’s Southern Nights is one of my very favorite […]
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I am going through serious withdrawal. JazzFest is just weeks away. Absent some confluence of miracles, I won’t be there for the second year in a row. After a thirty five year run. The realities of being firmly into my octogenarianism are manifest. As much as it pains, prudence must prevail. But it’s ever on […]
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On occasion the worth of a yarn is in the telling. Not whether there’s a lesson or a moral, if any. It’s can be the journey more than the destination, if any. Or so I convince myself with today’s adventure. Not sure exactly where we might arrive — though I’ve a glimmer — but do […]
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You a rock & roller? Itching for a fight? You’re hangin’ with pals who love the tuneage as much as you do. Here’s a sure fire starter. Throw out a declaration, a definitive statement, a proclamation that XXXXXX is The Best Live Album of All Time. Here’s a suggestion. For your own personal safety. But […]
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The story’s been told before. But it’s my favorite about Ray Charles and me. The time I didn’t hear him when I intended to. At JazzFest. As I’ve written many times over, one of the cool daily rituals during Fest has been the krewe gathering in the evening for some sumptuous meal, pulling out our […]
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When I mentioned recently to a fellow rock & roll addict that I’d spent my early morning during breakfast revisiting the great 1987 documentary, “Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock & Roll,” he wondered how that came about? A long and winding road for certain. Serpentine. As my thought processes tend to be these days. Briefly. […]
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I shall end up with a reveal of my favorite cameo in a rock & roll song, promise. But it shall take some meandering to get there. For context, and certainly appropriate for today’s date, let me start here, with what for me is an indelible if just imagined image. The morning after the plane […]
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No, I was never at Woodstock. Though, given my open obsession/ addiction to rock & roll, many people have asked, so sure in their minds that I had to have been there. I was at Atlanta Pop II in ’70, the ill fated (and ill named) Celebration of Life the following summer, plus a great […]
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The lede shall not be buried. The sequel to “This is Spinal Tap” is not as good as the original. It happens. There’s only one “Godfather 2.” Only one “Astral Weeks.” Only one “Guernica.” That settled, next question: Should there have been a sequel? After all, the original is a masterwork. It essentially invented the […]
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Impulsive compulsive consumerizer that I am, it doesn’t take much. So, I was toast when the face stared out at me from the ‘zine rack by checkout at Jeff Bezos’ grocery store — purposely there to snare a dude with my predilection. From the way back machine. Someone I haven’t thought about for decades frankly. […]
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Screen door slams/ Mary’s dress sways/ Like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays It is the opening line of the opening tune of Bruce Springsteen’s 1975 masterwork of an album, “Born To Run.” A collection of eight short stories no less relevant and seminal than Salinger’s “Nine Stories,” or Joyce’s […]
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My my my generation is one that grew up learning how to dial a rotary phone, which plugged into the wall with wires that ran to a telephone pole outside. Some of us experienced the oddness of family lines, where several households had the same number and could listen in on the others’ calls. True. […]
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It has happened a few times recently. A moment when I’ve been chided with something like, “You’re the Culture Maven, or so you say, but you don’t seem to be posting much about, eh, culture. “The occasional movie review, or another blog about how much you love the Tedeschi Trucks band, but not much else. […]
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Triple entendre, that. The title, that is. First, simply literally. As I was taking care of errands, motoring about the other afternoon, it was a poetic spring day. Sunny. Short sleeve warm. Not too humid. And, oh my, that sky. Azure to infinity. Lazy billowy Cumulus. Layered. Textured. The sort of visual, like the Pacific […]
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