There are hundreds of tour guides in New Orleans. Each must be licensed by the city and applicants are required to pass an exam about New Orleans history, though it seems a majority of guides focus less on factual history than supernatural legends. For music fans, there is one prominent tour guide these days. For the past eight years, Keith Abel has led a walking tour of the French Quarter starting at the Louisiana Music Factory.
“I try to introduce a wider appreciation of the kinsmen and women of blues, jazz and rock ‘n roll who literally walked the same steps we do today while hearing the songs and stories of the originators of the New Orleans sound,” Abel said.
Anyone familiar with the HBO series Treme knows that Davis McAlary, played by Steve Zahn, was not only a radio DJ but also a music tour guide. In a sense, Abel is the embodiment of that character, knowledgeable and passionate about New Orleans music traditions. His tours focus on the roots of jazz with Buddy Bolden, Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong and cover the emergence of the city’s R&B and scene. Abel’s tours include portable head sets with bluetooth speaker capability that allow recorded music to play along the stroll. The tour includes a visit to Danny Barker‘s boyhood home, Pete Fountain‘s former nightclub on Bourbon Street, the site of J&M Studios, Congo Square and the Royal Orleans Hotel, host to such touring rock groups as the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Led Zeppelin and The Allman Brothers Band.
More recently, Abel has started giving food tours after being a cook and TV food stylist for many years. His music tours are about two hours and the food tour is three.
Born in Texas, Abel grew up near Shreveport and there was always music in his home. “When I was young, my mother’s 45s and my father’s Johnny Cash and Eddie Arnold albums were always playing or the radio was on.” His parents died when he was young and he was then raised by his grandmother. At that time, he inherited the record collection of his brother-in-law who moved overseas. Abel became obsessed with the blues, the from Lead Belly and Blind Lemon Jefferson to T Bone Walker and Stevie Rae Vaughan, while also taking in the whole range of country, blues, soul and pop. His grandmother was not pleased with this devotion. “Those records will never get you anywhere.” Amazingly, they did though that wasn’t the path Abel first followed.
Abel initially took a middle-class path to success by attending college and working as a paralegal. He had plans to go to law school but he wasn’t happy. When Stevie Rae Vaughan died in 1990, Abel ditched any aspiration to become a lawyer and went to work for Stan Lewis, the record man of Shreveport. Lewis owned the Jewel, Paula, and Ronn recording labels and was a major regional record distributor despite going bankrupt in 1983.
Abel started packing records in the warehouse but within a few years he was the publicist and international representative for Lewis’ range of labels, serving as a reissue coordinator and writing liner notes for dozens of historic blues and gospel albums. Abel was on the radio as well, reporting news and playing music. “I was part of Shotgun (Ken Shepherd, father of singer Kenny Wayne Shepherd) and Abel in the Morning on KTUX, 99.1 FM in Shreveport.”
In 1998, Lewis and Abel had a parting of the ways. Abel built and operated Deer View recording studio in Shreveport for a few years before becoming general manger for Vent Records in Birmingham, Alabama, where he worked with young blues artists like Michael Burks who was a nominee for the W.C. Handy Award for best new artist in 2000.
During these years, Abel would come to New Orleans but never really thought about relocating. “New Orleans is my favorite place in the world to get away from everything,” he said. When he finally did move to the city in 20021, he worried he would not make a success of it. “I soon realized I can never live any place else.” He consulted for Louisiana Red Hot Records and was part of an artist management team with the late musician/composer David Egan for a few years.
A high point in that period was accompanying Irma Thomas in 2007 to the 49th annual Grammy Awards at the Staples Center in Los Angeles where the legendary R&B vocalist won her first Grammy award, edging out the competition in the best contemporary blues album category for her Rounder album, After the Rain. Egan had written three songs on the album. Abel found himself suddenly in the role of publicist, trying to get Thomas the best exposure at all the networks based at the ceremony. Varied in his career path, Abel sought many avenues of employment before starting his music tour business.
As a teenager, he worked as a utility hand on a construction site for a restaurant. From utility hand, he became a busboy when the business opened. “On the first Friday, the fry cook quit,” he said. So, he became the fry cook. He has worked on and off in restaurants ever since.
“I started cooking when I was a kid,” Abel said. “When I was four years old, my aunt put an apron on me, set me on a bar stool and said, ‘Stir that roux and don’t let it stick.’ The roux didn’t stick but the cooking did.”
Abel cooked his way through college and as a side job while working in the record business. He prepared food for weddings other events and catered for guests in green rooms. In New Orleans, he cooked at Café Degas.
Meanwhile, Abel also started working in the movie business in the art and prop departments. His culinary experience ultimately led him to be the food stylist for NCIS New Orleans from the show’s beginning in 2014 through all seven seasons. Food was featured in the series with Scott Bakula who played Dwayne Pride, head of the New Orleans Naval Criminal Investigative Service, frequently appearing in a kitchen. The first episode featured Bakula serving his staff eggs Creole with remoulade sauce and andouille sausage. In later seasons, Bakula runs the Tru Tone Bar and was often seen preparing food.
From the outset of the television drama, a decision was made that all the food would be real and as described in the dialogue. Abel recalls a memorable time on the set when Bakula carried Abel’s infant child around as Abel cooked.
In one episode of season two called “Help Wanted,” a pipe bombed explodes in a restaurant and the final scene depicts an outdoor benefit for the restaurant with blues musician Gary Clark Jr. playing on the street and four of New Orleans’ leading chefs—Leah Chase, Susan Spicer, Sue Zamenick and John Besh— each brought their own food. Abel was there as well but his only on screen appearance in the series is a brief few seconds at the grill behind a shot of Bakula. “My food was the food coming up in the restaurant kitchen and dining room scenes, pre- and post-explosion, with pork chops and sausage on the grill at the end.”
Abel had met Clark, who lives in Austin, Texas, prior to working on NCIS New Orleans and the two enjoyed a reunion.
“I‘ve known Gary since he was 17,” Abel said. “We met in Memphis at the Blues Foundation’s International Blues Competition back in 1999 or 2000, where I was a judge. I took Gary into the studio the following day, having him play and meet Skip McQuinn, the Pope of Beale Street, and producer and engineer Greg Archilla. I told Gary then, ‘If you stick with it, one day people will know your name just like you and I know Freddie King’s.’ He is a badass!”
Abel looks back on his seven seasons at NCIS New Orleans, with fond memories of the cast and crew but there were challenges. In one episode he had been told to prepare a large order of gumbo only to have it changed to jambalaya at the last minute. He pulled it off.
Abel’s food tours grew out of that experience. Guests go around the French Quarter eating a selection of iconic local specialties while Abel talks about the food history of the city.
“I started the food tour in March of 2020 which turned out to be a telling date,” he said. “With the pandemic, I have only conducted a couple of dozen tours, but response has been phenomenal. I am looking forward to helping visitors explore New Orleans culture with both my tours.”
For more information about Abel Tours, visit here.
