20 WHO MATTERED
I really can’t argue with your choices, even though I have not listened to all of them (which I plan to do before Jazz Fest ’08), since you have been there and know all of them in one respect or another. That said, how can you have possibly left off “the Doc”? Dr. John was actually my first experience with Nawlins music back when Gris Gris came out and I have been in love with it ever since thanks solely to the doctor!

—Dean Styles, Winston Salem, NC

Surely there was room in the pantheon for a venerable native son like the late “gospel genius” Raymond Myles.

Raymond had the great gift. A voice of astounding amplitude, like Donny Hathaway’s. A showman’s charisma that rivaled Liberace’s and Little Richard’s. His messages of hope and healing were spine-tingling and soul-stirring. His harmonies came from heaven. His dazzling piano chops and deep-dish grooves lasted for days.

The arc of his life—as the ninth of 10 children raised in the St. Bernard projects; as a devoted public school music teacher and choir director who nurtured so many young lives; as a moral compass during the murderous crack epidemic of the ’90s—was remarkable on its own.

And more remarkable, considering the universal forces of poverty and discrimination which shaped his life and influenced his worldview.

Raymond had the flash and fire of America’s most inspired devotional artists (think of Sam Cooke, Ray Charles and Aretha Franklin). He thrilled pop audiences as a Jazz Fest perennial and busted boundaries at the Telluride Bluegrass and Newport Folk festivals. Yet his spirit never left the church because Raymond embraced the goals, aspirations and guiding principles that we all share.

To that extent, Raymond Myles represented the best in humankind.

He was on the cusp of stardom when he was murdered (with his own gun) outside the French Quarter in 1998. The funeral, after Louis Armstrong’s and Mahalia Jackson’s, was the largest that New Orleans has ever seen.

How Raymond made his bright light shine! And couldn’t we use a little of his shining light now?

—Leo Sacks, Cold Spring, NY

Leo Sacks, who produced Sing Me Back Home by the New Orleans Social Club, is writing and directing a documentary tentatively titled A Taste of Heaven: The Heartbreak Life of Raymond Myles, Gospel Genius of New Orleans.—ED.

GIULIANI TIME
Regarding “What’s My Second Line? Twelve Steps in a New Orleans Tradition,” by John Swenson, I agree with the consensus of many people in New Orleans that there should be a balance between the noise concerns of people in Treme and the interest in preserving second line traditions. Being from New York City and having lived in the French Quarter since 2001, I speak from first-hand knowledge in contrasting reality with Mr. Swenson’s characterization of New Orleans today as anything like New York at the end of Mayor Giuliani’s two terms (Step 10: Giuliani Time).

At the time, and even today, it is a cliché among elites to accuse Rudy Giuliani of having destroyed some carefree artistic utopia that existed before he became mayor, which it wasn’t. None of these places in Lower Manhattan were ever cheap, except when they were abandoned decades before he became mayor. A majority of New Yorkers probably disagreed with him at some point on some issues, thinking he was going too far. However, very few people who lived in New York under Mayor Dinkins would like to go back to the years of six murders a day, instead of the present one or two, with an even larger population.

The strong-arm robbery practice of squeegee men approaching the windshield of every car crossing a bridge or tunnel in New York (which he stopped) had a similar effect to the Bourbon Street hustle of drug addicts betting tourists where they got their shoes and then grabbing their wallets out of their hands and running: it has symbolized each city’s sense of hopelessness and irreversible decline. If you want to see what New York “street life” was like before Giuliani, rent Taxi Driver or just go to the corner of Dauphine and St. Louis (a.k.a. “Crack Corner”). The drug dealers and male hustlers might seem colorful to a few twisted voyeuristic people in very limited quantities, but for the people who actually live near there, it is nerve-racking and depressing. New Orleans should be so lucky to have a mayor like Rudy Giuliani, so that writers like John Swenson could write years from now about 2007’s City Hall Crime March, when New Orleans was just some carefree artistic utopia.

—Ian Goldenberg, New Orleans, LA

TWENTIETH ANNIVERSARY
Thank you for 20 years. May you have 20 more. Your work makes what we players do real to the public; we do not exist until we are in media. Your dedication to this task, this community, is equal to our own.
And that is something I know all about. It’s not about money, or fame, or recognition, or glory. It’s a spiritual quest aimed at enriching people’s lives through a mandatory sharing of gifts we have been given, to play, or to hear and to write, providing common experience that binds us together as the people of this great city.

—Jim Markway, New Orleans, LA

Thanks for all the great work for the past 20 years. Really love it! Also noticed on the bottom of page 8 a cover with Dash Rip Rock—one of my favorites! I still enjoy going to their shows locally. Keep up the excellent work!

—Tim Moreau, Metairie, LA

I know that OffBeat has been a labor of love over the past 20 years. I’ve enjoyed the past 10 years of it since my arrival here. It was my “Bible” when I was a NOLA newbie (in terms of residency). I’m glad you hung in there and are still leading the charge even today!

—Mark Janes & Liz Patrick, New Orleans, LA

Thanks for putting up with Jax for about 10 of your 20 years since I first subscribed and discovered your message board—oh, how I miss the old board! If I was you, I’d be walking around with my chest puffed out all week, proud as a peacock.

—Mike “Jax” Altee, Atlantic Beach, FL

OVERLOOKED THE DRUMMER
I would like to thank OffBeat and Andre Mouton for reviewing my new CD. I thought the review was fair and honest. My only problem was that when Mr. Mouton listed the band members, he left out drummer Allyn Robinson, one of the finest musicians this city has ever produced. Allyn’s musical accomplishments are too lengthy to go into here, but somehow he is usually overlooked when talking about the great New Orleans drummers. If you were to ask Johnny Vidacovich or Kevin O’Day about Allyn’s talent, I am sure you would get an earful! Once again thanks for checking out our CD. It is true that a band is only as good as its drummer. That puts us in pretty good shape.

—Marc Adams, New Orleans, LA