Dave Mason will take his fans for a walk down memory lane when he brings his retrospective Traffic Jam show to the House of Blues New Orleans on Wednesday, March 16. The virtuoso guitarist, who co-founded seminal English rock band Traffic before achieving success with solo hits like “We Just Disagree,” will helm a multimedia experience, complete with psychedelic visuals and more than a few stories from the golden age of rock n’ roll.

Though his show was originally scheduled for February, Mason–the man behind Traffic classics such as “Feelin’ Alright” and “Hole In My Shoe”–was forced to cancel a number of dates due to an illness. He’ll be making up the gig tomorrow, when he takes the stage for one of the last stops on his Traffic Jam outing.

I caught up with Mason last week to discuss his retrospective show, as well as that time he helped Paul McCartney record a hit at Allen Toussaint’s legendary Sea-Saint Studio in New Orleans.

What can we expect from these Traffic Jam shows?

We’ve been out doing these shows since the latter part of 2013, and this will be one of the last shows. It’s pretty much a revisiting of my Traffic days that has turned into, I guess, a two-hour musical biography of my career. We start out with some Traffic stuff and we have some visuals. We have a few little stories.Then we kind of take a break from that and then I do stuff from my solo career with some new stuff in there. It’s a little musical travelogue.

And you’ve been promoting a live album?

Well, there’s a live CD of the show; of the whole show, yes. Pretty much, that’s just something that we carry with us on the road, it isn’t really available anywhere else other than at the concerts.

So you’re coming to New Orleans, and you’ve surely played here over the years. Do you have any interesting stories from past trips here?

I’ve played a few shows there over the years. I played at the old Warehouse a number of times back in the 70s. Actually, I did one show there when [Sir Paul] McCartney was down there recording. So that’s how I got to play on “Listen to What the Man Said.” He was cutting that track in New Orleans, and I had a day off. That’s why I got to play on that song, his band was in New Orleans.

Who is backing you for these shows?

I’ve got a band, a great band. John Sambataro is with me, been playing with me on-and-off for over years. Alvino Bennett is my drummer, and Tony Patler plays keyboards.

What’s it like to be doing a retrospective show like this? You have a deep catalog between the Traffic stuff and your solo work. How do you decide what makes the setlist?

There’s always something that you didn’t do that somebody wants to hear. But I tend to put things in the show that are fun for me and the band to you play, you know, repeatedly. Like I said, we’ve been doing this show since the latter part of 2013. So there are some Traffic songs that I’ve rearranged, like “Dear Mr. Fantasy.” I do a slow blues version of “Low Spark of High Heeled Boys.” I try to pick tunes other than things like“We Just Disagree,” which is pretty much a set song. I try to incorporate stuff that leaves enough room for a little improvisation, guitar solos and drum solos. I try to keep it fun for us musically. Otherwise, if it was just completely note for note, it would just get boring, and that would relay to the audience and then it just wouldn’t be any fun. It has to be fun for us first before it can be fun for anybody.

You don’t have that many dates after New Orleans. Is this going to be it for the Traffic Jam Tour, or do you plan to continue after that?

Well, the New Orleans date is a makeup date. I got whacked with a couple of vocal cord problems from being sick and then on top of that I just got my ass kicked with this flu that’s going around. So I had to reschedule some shows, and New Orleans is one of them. I apologize to all those people who were expecting me to be there, but hopefully they’ll come back for our return.  I love New Orleans.

I have two or three more makeup shows to do after that and then we’re off until about the sixth of May. Then I start a national tour with myself, the Doobie Brothers and Journey until September.

Those shows will be a more traditional concert set?

Yes, the show I’m doing is a two hour show but obviously with something like that I’m restricted in a sense. I’ll probably be lucky if we get like 40 minutes to play.

Are there any plans to record any new material after these retrospective sets wrap up?

I fool around with stuff with I’m home, but the problem is that–it’s hard to talk about it without sounding negative–but the reality is that making a new CD these days is somewhat of a lost cause. There’s no radio anymore. There’s no way to promote it. Not like the old days of radio when there were DJ’s all over. Everybody’s ripping everything off of the Internet now. The bottom line is, it costs money to make an album, and that’s just reality. So all I’m really doing is what I’m doing, which is the live CD. I recorded the show live and it came out great. I just keep it for when I’m at the venues, and if people want to take a copy of the show home, they can.

Dave Mason will perform at the House of Blues New Orleans on Wednesay, March 16. Tickets for the show are available here.