During the 60s Bourbon Street was a whole lot seedier, and some timeless music grew from those seeds. Neville (who later referred to “Over You” as “the OJ song”) wouldn’t make his national breakthrough until 1966, with the timeless “Tell It Like It Is,” one of the few original New Orleans R&B landmarks that Toussaint had nothing to do with. The 80s brought national attention for The Neville Brothers’ funk/soul gumbo, and the brass-band revival spawned by The Dirty Dozen and Rebirth Brass Bands.
Credit that partly to New Orleans being a seaport city, or the “northernmost point of the Caribbean” as it’s sometimes called. By now it was such a quintessential New Orleans record that most people forget it was written by a New Yorker, Bob Crewe of Four Seasons fame. In the 60s, the city devised its own form of soul/R&B under the guiding hand of producer, arranger, and songwriter Allen Toussaint.
Two of the city’s beloved instrumentalists, trumpeter Al Hirt and clarinetist Pete Fountain, had clubs on Bourbon and when they weren’t charming middle America on television, played into the night. Even before he became the toast of Vegas, Prima combined solid jazz, Italian roots, and good old showmanship into the stuff of enduring hipsterism.
New Orleans didn’t invent rock’n’roll, but it did give it a shot of wild abandon – not least when Little Richard recorded “Tutti Frutti” at the legendary J&M Studio on Rampart Street.
This was quite literally the birthplace of rock’n’roll – if you count Fats Domino’s 1949 classic “The Fat Man” as the first rock’n’roll record. Though he left the world in 1980, “Fess” is still very much a presence at Tipitina’s. The glory days of New Orleans R&B were helped along by the availability of those gigs.
Just ask the producer of his Classified album, who sat with Booker for three rambling days only to get an album’s worth of sustained brilliance in the very last couple of hours.
On a good night, Booker was known to play classical pieces forward and backward, just because he could. Her 1947 landmark, “Move Up A Little Higher,” introduced jazz improvisation to gospel; it sold an unheard-of eight million copies and got her to Carnegie Hall.
During 1968-69, a motley Arkansas band called the Knowbody Else played nightly at the Gunga Den, a Bourbon club that was better known as the home of exotic dancer Linda Brigette (who was personally pardoned by the governor after being arrested for her “Dance Of A Lover’s Dream” routine). Her one gospel album (1993’s Walk Around Heaven) is a joy, as are her annual visits to the Gospel Tent at the Jazz And Heritage Festival.
“If a guy liked Afro-Cuban, that’s what he booked. It’s a place where Mardi Gras Indians first inspired the call and response now associated with hip-hop, rap and bounce.
New Orleanians care deeply about family, faith, food, traditions, and, perhaps most of all, about making a joyful noise. If it all starts to feel a bit overwhelming and otherworldly, you’re in the right place.
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In fact, the denizens of Storyville were some of the only people who heard jazz in its original incarnation, since Buddy Bolden – the cornetist who gets as much credit as anyone for originating jazz – never made it to the recording studio (one teenage fan of his who eventually did was Louis Armstrong). From the soulful sounds of jazz to the lively rhythms of brass bands, New Orleans music is not just an art form but a way of life.
The origins of jazz can be traced back to the late 19th and early 20th centuries in New Orleans, a melting pot of cultures including African, Caribbean, French, and Spanish influences.
The building is now home to a hairdresser’s.
Modern-day visitors are more likely to experience karaoke bars and round-the-clock frat parties, rather than traditional New Orleans music, but in the 60s Bourbon Street was the place to be, and it remains part of New Orleans’ rich history.
Walking down Frenchmen has been described as like turning a radio dial, such is the variety of styles you’ll hear blasting out of the clubs.
And, to large extent, they’ve got a point. “One of the cool things about New Orleans clubs in the 50s was that club owners booked the kind of music they personally liked,” Dr. John wrote in his memoir, Under A Hoodoo Moon. Oddly, though, the first hit that he wrote and produced, “Over You,” for Aaron Neville in 1960, had a different mood entirely.
Toussaint pictured Neville as a proto-gangster character threatening revenge if his gal strayed.
Another had a thing for blues, he went with that. These ensembles, typically featuring trumpets, trombones, saxophones, and percussion, are a staple at parades, funerals, and various celebrations. The songs he wrote and produced for a roll-call of artists including Irma Thomas, Jesse Hill, Ernie K-Doe, and Lee Dorsey, among others, sported a characteristic swing and elegance.
Glenn Miller and collaborator Jack Teagarden would later add lyrics that made the street sound far more wholesome than it was.
One thing you wouldn’t find in Storyville is The House Of The Rising Sun, the New Orleans brothel celebrated in a folk song that The Animals turned into an R&B standard. From the early days of jazz to the vibrant contemporary music scene, the city’s sounds continue to inspire and captivate.
The house band for most of Toussaint’s sessions was, of course, The Meters, whose brand of slinky, supple funk became a trademark.
The Neville Brothers - Tell It Like It Is - 7/6/1979 - unknown (Official)
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In the early 70s, Toussaint opened his Sea-Saint Studio at 3809 Clematis Street, in the Gentilly area.
Another theory holds that The Rising Sun was a person, Marianne LeSoleil Levant, who ran a brothel on St Louis Street. Another iconic figure is Jelly Roll Morton, a pianist and composer who claimed to have invented jazz. The hippies felt right at home with the Doctor’s trippy imagery, but he was actually referencing something far more psychedelic: the city’s tradition of voodoo.
His world would intersect with Toussaint’s soon enough when they recorded the album In the Right Place At Sea-Saint, marking the only time the Doctor hit the singles charts.
Morton’s innovative compositions and performances helped to shape the early sounds of the genre.
Other notable musicians from New Orleans include Sidney Bechet, a pioneering clarinetist and saxophonist; Mahalia Jackson, the “Queen of Gospel”; and Dr. John, whose blend of blues, pop, jazz, boogie-woogie, and rock and roll earned him a dedicated following.
Brass bands are an integral part of New Orleans’ musical landscape.
This was where slaves gathered on Sunday and, according to legend, first laid down the African-derived rhythms that have permeated New Orleans music ever since. Martin Luther King Jr. He’d go on to become one of the city’s great musical polymaths, cutting everything from lowdown funk to elegant standards albums in later years.
One landmark that’s still very much alive is Tipitina’s, named after a Professor Longhair song and formerly his longtime stomping ground.