Issue Articles — Features
They Sashay By…From Bourbon Street to Esplanade—LeRoux is Back
In the ’70s and ’80s, Louisiana’s LeRoux released five major-label albums. The band’s biggest hit, “Nobody Said It Was Easy,” reached the national Top 20. Two other songs, “Addicted” and […]
Celebratory Music: Mario Abney Reaches on a Human and Intellectual Level
“In New Orleans, you can live after a jam session if you didn’t have a good night,” Mario Abney says with a laugh when comparing the jazz scene in his […]
Festival Focus: Robert Finley at Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival
For decades, blues, soul and gospel singer-guitarist Robert Finley stayed in north Louisiana. A resident of the small town of Bernice, he backed gospel quartets, played music for local TV […]
Festival Focus: Don Bryant & the Bo-Keys at Ponderosa Stomp
Don Bryant, one of the architects of the classic Memphis soul sound of Hi Records, made a spectacular comeback album, Don’t Give Up On Love, just in time to be […]
A Pop Masterpiece: For Evie Sands, Making Music is Like Breathing
As any Ponderosa Stomp-goer knows, there are certain records that you need enlightened ears to appreciate. Evie Sands’ 1965 near-hit, “Take Me for a Little While,” isn’t one of those. […]
Ready For More: Bobby Rush celebrates his first Grammy at the Blues & BBQ Festival
Bluesman Bobby Rush is living high off the hog, or at least that’s how the down home, Louisiana native might describe it. “We talk about chickens, donkeys, monkeys and alligators—anything […]
Here’s Looking At You, Dick
This story starts in Starkville, Mississippi, in an ordinary lunch café. I’m having meatloaf, I think, when a woman walks through the door—a woman who looks strangely like the bouzouki-wielding, […]
A Utopian Environment: Stax Records employee Deanie Parker celebrates 60 years
This year is the 60th anniversary of the founding of the mighty Memphis soul music label Stax Records. Originally named Satellite Records, Stax and its subsidiary, Volt, released classics by […]
Musical Landscapes: The Crooked Vines take risks and detours while remaining cohesive
Mikayla Braun is beaming. It is not because her band, local funk-pop group the Crooked Vines, is playing to a large and enthralled crowd at Tipitina’s (which they are). Nor […]
Dreamlike Scenarios: Ed Volker has always been looking for the song
Hammer out those words burnt red from the coals. Scrape the bark off those gnarly melodies and bend them to your will. Wince at the stinking coal fire smoke and […]
