This week, trade your rain boots for dancing shoes; it’s the start of the All-Star Country Festival and four nights of country and Louisiana-based music. The event grew out of the All-Star Cover Dish Country Jamboree, a weekly music and potluck held at Mag’s 940 every Tuesday between October and May.
The Deslondes. Photo by Tamara Grayson.
“We started the All-Star Cover Dish Country Jamboree six years ago because there really wasn’t a real space for Americana music to be happening in New Orleans at the time,” said founder Joy Patterson, who runs the event with husband guitarist Matt Bell and several other dedicated folks. Local dancers and roots-inspired bands of all sorts—Cajun bands, jug bands, honky-tonk bands, and beyond—found in the event a much needed gathering point, and word also spread via touring bands from near and far who found this to be the place to hang their hats while in New Orleans.
Patterson and company have been instrumental in cultivating a music and dance scene that’s currently flourishing in the city, notably among the younger generation.
“We do the potluck, we have a dance teacher…. we taught all our friends to two-step!” Patterson said. “After a couple years, people started saying we should do our own festival.”
Falling between Jazz Fest weekends, the Country Festival is the perfect complement to the larger fest, a great way for local and visiting festers alike to kick back and enjoy some of the types of music that are not always as well-represented at the larger festival.
“We’re all about respecting traditional or traditionally-inspired Louisiana bands of all kinds,” said founder Joy Patterson. The lineup features Americana, honky tonk, Cajun, zydeco, swamp pop, Ameripolitan music, contemporary R&B, gospel, country blues, and plenty in between.
The fun starts at 6 p.m. tonight night at the Piety Ironworks with the Go-Go Roving Dancehall, a collaboration between Patterson and Effie Michot, who operates the popular Cajun Brunch dance event at the Tigermen Den. “We’re basically getting everyone together for a big dance,” Patterson said. (The music goes until 9 or so, so you have time to run down after Petty.)
Monday and Tuesday at Mags bring a wide variety of Louisiana-based sounds, including Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Revue and Cajun favorites Feufollet.
On Wednesday, Ameripolitan DJ-of-the-Year nominee Jimi Palacios will host Ameripolitan night at the St Roch Tavern. The term “Ameripolitan”—which comprises honky-tonk, Western swing, outlaw, and rockabilly—was coined to describe the forms of contemporary country music that draw from traditional roots formats (as opposed to the type of pop country that many people associate with the genre) and Palacios has four killer Louisiana acts on the docket to close out the festival. See complete four-day lineup below.
This event is free of charge. There is a $10 suggested donation.
