Music
Joy Clark: Tell It to the Wind (Righteous Babe)
Thanks to her touring and visibility in the last few years, Joy Clark’s stands to be the highest-profile debut to come out of New Orleans in quite some time and suffice to say she hasn’t blown it. Working with producer and collaborator Margaret Becker, and a few nods from label owner Ani DiFranco, she’s made an impressively accomplished album that draws two streams of music—the introspective singer/songwriter realm and locally-rooted funk and soul—into something quite her own.
David Shaw: Take a Look Inside (Yokoko Records)
It sounds like David Shaw has just been through a bad breakup, a heavy round of therapy, or both. In terms of emotional intensity, his second solo album outdoes anything he’s done with the Revivalists, which for those who know the band’s work, is saying something. This is not the most radio-friendly record he’s ever made (and it’s on his own label so there’s nobody to complain), but an album for fans who will appreciate that he’s opened up this much.
Grayson Capps: Heartbreak, Misery & Death (Royal Potato Family)
Nothing but the truth in this album title, since every track on the album is about one or all of the above. Though he’s recorded some upbeat rock ’n’ roll in his time, Grayson Capps here turns his attention to the darker corners of the American songbook—murder ballads, downcast country songs, foreboding gospel numbers, and Leonard Cohen’s greatest hit are all accounted for. If you’re one of those depressives who became a Johnny Cash fan because of the haunting American Recordings albums, you’ll be right at home.
Karma & the Killjoys: Synthetic (Pal Productions)
Make immediate room on your Halloween playlist for “Stay My Fangs,” the closing track from Karma & the Killjoys’ six-track EP. Propelled by a gothy blues groove and Rain Scott-Catoire’s dramatic vocal, the song uses werewolf imagery to explore the nature of sensuality and strength. Somewhere Anne Rice is smiling.
Beth Patterson: The Cigar Box Guitar EP (Stone Groove)
If the title of this EP makes it sound like it’s going to be a nice little acoustic session, guess again. In all her years doing folk and acoustic music, Beth Patterson has always dropped hints that she’s a rocker at heart—though her occasional Rush covers are hard hints to miss. Some of her rocker side came out on her recent Singles compilation, and she turns it fully loose on this EP. Whatever that guitar is, it makes a pretty mighty sound.
Max Bien-Kahn: Flowers (Defend Vinyl)
Based on his previous indie releases I had Max Bien-Kahn pegged as a singer/writer who makes charmingly offhand pop in the same general orbit of Jonathan Richman and NRBQ (and a million miles from his regular band, Tuba Skinny). To a large extent that’s still true on his latest album, but the real highlights here are still pop but more poignant.
Tiago Guy: Paper Thin (Independent)
This warm breeze of an album marks the arrival of a promising songwriter to town. Tiago Guy came to New Orleans from Brazil in 2021, and the songs here include farewells to his old home and greetings to his new one.
A Tribute To The Queen: Producer Sonny Schneidau’s tribute promises to be special
Thanksgiving is traditionally a time for Tipitina’s to give thanks to its favorite local legends. The past six seasons (skipping one for covid) have seen tributes to Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, Fats Domino and others. But this year’s tribute to Irma Thomas promises to be a little special. For one thing, it features a one-time convergence of many of New Orleans’ greatest voices, all of them belonging to women. For another, the honoree herself will be among the performers.
Review, 2024 NOLA Funk Fest: New Orleans Jazz Museum
To invoke the name of another popular festival, the NOLA Funk Fest was hardly strictly funk. True, there was plenty of uncut funk in the weekend lineup—but with the weekend’s headliners including the wildly eclectic Tank & the Bangas and the diva of bounce Big Freedia, it mostly honored funk as a cornerstone of the wider realm of New Orleans music. And with an audience including a fair share of out-of-town visitors, it also served as a mid-season Jazz Fest fix for the faithful.
Tab Benoit: I Hear Thunder (Whiskey Bayou Records)
The last thing you’d expect Tab Benoit to require is another guitar player, especially one with an equally high profile as a bandleader. But he teamed with Anders Osborne on his last album Medicine a full 13 years ago, and the two are reunited on this long-overdue follow-up (delayed largely so Benoit could get out of record-label limbo and launch his own Whiskey Bayou Records label).
