Back to Normal?

I donated a bit of money as I fervently wish that your magazine will survive.

I am an Australian who has been visiting New Orleans twice a year for many years and for the last six years or, so I have been spending up to three months a year there as my fiancée is a born-and-bred NOLA girl.

Sadly, we have not been able to see each for over a year as Lisa was meant to come down here mid-March last year and I was heading back to New Orleans on April 21 for six weeks, but Covid ended that and any other related travel plans. And the way things are going, who bloody knows when we will ever be able to have our engagement party, but I completely understand all precautions and travel bans by our government as we have taken Covid very seriously and I only wish that a lots of USA citizens would do the same. Lisa and a lot of my friends have led an almost hermit-like existence for months as they cannot abide ignorant fools willfully disobeying common sense health directives.

I am also strongly involved with the Threadhead Foundation and I am good friends with Kenny and Heather, two of the senior members of our organization.

It is amazing what we have been able to achieve and how many people are made happy through the music. I have been lucky to meet many good people and see music and party with them in many parts of the USA in London and various parts of down here in Australia.

I was drawn to New Orleans initially by Jazz Fest and by the fact that my dad played lots of Louis Armstrong when I was a kid; if he had a beer or two, he would pretend he was Trummy Young and play his patented air trombone.

Several years ago, when we tipped half of my father’s ashes next to Pops’ statue in Armstrong Park, Craig Klein and Shamarr Allen were good enough to give us all a bit of musical accompaniment. Before and during the little ceremony Craig asked me about my dad and I told him the Trummy Young story and he laughed and told me that Trummy had been one of his heroes when he was growing up.

It has been hard for many people for a year now. I am involved with concert, event and sports merchandising and as such, I and lots of others I know have battled and are still battling.

I wish you all the best for being able to keep the magazine afloat and with luck it will be able to flourish in the future when we get back to some sort of normal.

—Bryce “Gards” Gardiner, Bayside, Melbourne, Australia

One Woman Band

Crazy world. I bet it wasn’t without emotions that you had to leave the building. [referring to OffBeat moving from 421 Frenchmen Street to 400 Esplanade Avenue].

We all have to re-learn, how to keep existing, on internet platforms, etc.

As musicians, we had to live the same challenge, a new world, trying to make the best of it.

I’m releasing a new album, and I keep thinking that Robert [Fontenot] is gonna call, because he just got the new CD from my publicist. But he won’t. Although, I’m imagining he can dig it from where he’s at. [OffBeat contributor Robert Fontenot passed away in 2019]. He used to say that he loved the raw feel in my music, and the authenticity of the lyrics. I’m honored he wrote this beautiful interview about me, probably the best anybody ever wrote.

With the pandemic, I realized that I should explore that One Woman Band project I had.

I started playing drums with my feet, guitar and sing at the same time, then went on a long one-month Amtrak train trip: from Louisiana to the desert of Arizona, to the sunlit coast of California, through the view of the wild horses in Wyoming, the mountains of Colorado, city lights of Chicago, and the rusty Mississippi. I wrote the entire album by myself, while traveling with my backpack and my guitar.

Came back to the sweet NOLA, practiced day and night a block away from you on Marigny Street to finally leave for Memphis when I was ready. I recorded the album at Royal Studios, where Willie Mitchell and Al Green once made history.

All the best.

—Ghalia Volt, New Orleans, Louisiana