Johnsinclair.us - The official John Sinclair website. http://localhost/backup/liner-notes/87.html Tue, 16 Feb 2021 10:43:26 +0000 Joomla! 1.5 - Open Source Content Management en-gb http://localhost/backup/liner-notes/87-new-orleans/812-rockin-jake-full-time-work.html http://localhost/backup/liner-notes/87-new-orleans/812-rockin-jake-full-time-work.html
Rockin  Jake

Full Time Work
Zuluzu Records

By John Sinclair


New Orleans harmonica man Larry Rockin  Jake  Jacobs a musical descendant of the great Marion Little Walter  Jacobs has advanced several major steps since releasing his first CD, Let's Go Get Em, on Rabadash Records in the mid- 90s.

Jake's taken his dance-oriented rockin  blues show on the road and logged thousands of miles of travel throughout the USA, vending many copies of his second album, Badmouth (on his own Zuluzu label), as well as tiny harmonica necklaces, little bottles of Badmouth hot sauce and other imaginative custom products.

The rigors of the road lead to constant changes in personnel, but Jake always fields a hot, hard-rocking ensemble and wisely keeps his virtuostic harp in the forefront of things. He's singing more now and better, too! and he continues crafting his own well-tailored songs out of the raw materials of his life experience.

Full Time Work, Jake's new Zuluzu release, benefits from the deft touch of producer Brian Stoltz, whose over-the-top guitar solo work is also featured prominently throughout. Stoltz collaborates on several of the tunes as well, including the irresistible lead-off cut, Only Love Can Conquer Hate,  with Jake rapping out the lyrics hip-hop stylee.

Other co-writers on the album include Jim McCormick, Sam Price, T.J. Wheeler and Angelo Nocentelli (yes, he's Leo's younger brother). All the members of the recording group Jacobs, Stoltz, keyboardist John Gros, bassist Ron Johnson and drummer Doug Belote contribute to the appropriately mournful instrumental, Blues for N.Y.C. 

Jake's current concerns are laid out in a three-song series of truly heart-felt road songs that are positioned 2-3-4 in the batting order: Full Time Work, Part Time Pay,  Hit the Highway  and Goin  Back to the Big Easy.  One may almost smell the stale beer and cigarette smoke of the roadhouse in the afternoon when the van wheezes up after a 500-mile ride across some remote section of America and the battle-weary band members crawl out into the sunlight to face another night of underpaid and improperly unappreciated musical employment and the immense sense of utter relief one feels as the number of miles home to New Orleans shrinks ever smaller.

Slippin  Away  is a vocal duet between Irene Sage and Theryl Houseman  DeClouet introduced by Jake's eloquent mouth harp; both singers sound terrific, and the band cooks nicely behind them. Jake has a second three-song set of novelty numbers  The Hot Sauce Song,  a tuneful commercial for his own brand of the fiery condiment; a remake of Show Me Your Pretties,  a topical (or maybe topless is the better word) tune that suffers here from the absence of original lead singer Oliver Morgan; and Christmas Morning Blues,  an amusing attempt at ironic humor that perhaps should have been essayed in half the time allotted.

The program ends with a stately reading of Amazing Grace  which spotlights Jake's strength as an eloquently evocative harmonica soloist and the atmospheric keyboards of Papa  John Gros and it's a beautiful way to close this eminently listenable album.


New Orleans
April 3, 2002


(c) 2002, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.


]]> johnsinclair001@hotmail.com (John) New Orleans Thu, 09 Feb 2006 08:53:10 +0000 http://localhost/backup/liner-notes/87-new-orleans/811-andy-j-forest-letter-from-hell.html http://localhost/backup/liner-notes/87-new-orleans/811-andy-j-forest-letter-from-hell.html
Andy J. Forest
Letter from Hell
Appaloosa Records AP 145-2

By John Sinclair


The enterprising New Orleans-based harmonica man Andy J. Forest has produced a fine series of intriguing albums for the Italian Appaloosa label over the past several years, showcasing his original compositions, lusty singing and virtuoso harp playing in a variety of musical settings.

Andy's new Appaloosa release, Letter from Hell, features an excellent band of Crescent City players--with Marc Adams on keyboards, Jim Markway on bass, Johnny Vidacovich on drums and guitarist Everette Eglin--plus a plethora of special guests in another full program of Forest originals.

But this time there's an extra added attraction: Letter from Hell is billed as the "soundtrack" to Forest's novel of the same name, "the story of five unfortunate musicians [possessed of] a cruel and twisted past with sins ranging from murder to prostitution. They are plunged into an afterlife nightmare when they are killed in an explosion and are sent directly to the Devil's blues club located in a suburb of the second ring of Hell."

Forest has been writing songs almost as long as he's been playing harmonica, but he's taken up fiction only in the past couple of years--initially in response to an invitation to enter a short-story contest. His early stories met with positive response, and he soon embarked on the composition of his first novel, Letter from Hell. The book attracted the attention of Edizioni Pendragon, an Italian publisher, and an American edition was issued this spring to coincide with the U.S. release of the Appaloosa CD.

Irrespective of the merits of Forest's novel--which this reviewer has not yet read--the blues harpist's literary bent is readily apparent in his musical compositions, which range from whimsical little ditties like "I Love You Worse" to Forest's heartfelt memoir of the day Muddy Waters died, "Ode to Muddy." He's philosophical in "Deja Blues" and "Lies Have Long Legs" (both featuring the guitar of Mason Ruffner), roadweary on "Still Hummin'," funny and festive on "Mardi Gras Baby."

"Vacances d'Enfer" is rendered en francais to the accompaniment of Bruce Daigrepont's accordian and Forest's frattoir. "Tongue in Groove" is a hot harmonica instrumental, and organist Davell Crawford and vocalist Jackie Tolbert join Andy and the band on a long, soulful number called "If I Can Help Somebody."

The program ends with a rollicking "Mud Bellied Catfish Medley" and a tag, "Audio liner notes for the visually impaired," wherein Forest speaks to his listeners with National Resophonic guitar backing by Marc Stone.

The title track takes the form of an epistle from the nether regions: "Dear Friends," Forest writes, "It's hot down here, can't get ice water and / the very little beer we get is warm and flat. / They say I'm in for eternity, how about that?"

He continues through a hellish catalog of present conditions and concludes: "If I'm bad enough they might make me a devil too. / I'll get a glowing red fork, horns, and a smokin' hair doo / So hurry up and die! / Burnin' the Blues forever, we're gonna have fun. / P.S. And here no one...carries a gun."

On Letter from Hell Andy Forest has extended the reach of the blues a step beyond its customary earthly concerns to send back an imaginary report from the afterlife, and guess what? It's not such a different experience at all: "It's dark, cruel, scary and I keep getting stabbed by a fork / kind of reminds me of a neighborhood where / I used to live in New York."

With his first novel and accompanying "soundtrack" CD, Forest has achieved something distinctly out of the ordinary. We can only hope that his next project takes him to a little better place--maybe all the way to Blues Heaven.


--New Orleans
May 9, 1999


(c) 1999, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.


]]> johnsinclair001@hotmail.com (John) New Orleans Thu, 09 Feb 2006 08:27:32 +0000 http://localhost/backup/liner-notes/87-new-orleans/719-les-getrex-plays-the-classics.html http://localhost/backup/liner-notes/87-new-orleans/719-les-getrex-plays-the-classics.html
Les Getrex
Plays the Classics
Sound of New Orleans 1063

By John Sinclair


Les Getrex is one of New Orleans  undiscovered musical treasures. A product of the culturally profuse 6th Ward, Les has backed up many of the Crescent City's most profound heavyweights, from Johnny Adams and Lee Dorsey to Ernie K-Doe, Walter Wolfman  Washington, Barbara George and Marva Wright. He spent eight years in the guitar chair of the mighty Fats Domino orchestra and another five with the late Rockin  Dopsie & his Zydeco Twisters, and he's authored one previous album, 300 Miles, that featured his own compositions and several originals by veteran Motown songwriters Greg Clark and Johnny Maxwell.

For his second outing as a leader, the versatile guitarist and powerfully persuasive singer weighs in with a set of blues, R$B and country standards that could easily be called Les Getrex Plays the Classics. The songs belong to an eye-popping spectrum which ranges from Les's terrific reading of the ancient Mardi Gras Indian anthem Indian Red  to Kermit Ruffin's great 21st-century lament, I Can t Take My Baby Nowhere,  complete with trumpet commentary from the composer and some salacious lyrical changes wrought by Getrex himself.

Les hits a lot of musical stops along the way, swinging stone country tunes like Tennessee Waltz  and Hank Williams  Jambalaya ; pumping up a pair of pop chestnuts with his groovy lounge-favorite arrangement on Misty  and a hot 2nd-line romp on When My Dreamboat Comes Home ; paying devout homage to personal favorites like Bobby Blue  Bland ( Farther On Up the Road ) and Otis Redding ( Mr. Pitiful ); digging deeper into the urban blues with John Lee Hooker's Boom Boom Boom Boom  and I Found A Love  by the Falcons; striking another bawdy note with the irrepressible Chick Willis version of Stoop Down Mama ; and shining brightest on three outstanding selections from the Ray Charles mid-1950s Atlantic Records catalog: A Fool For You,  Hallelujah I Love Her So  and Mary Ann. 

Getrex is in splendid form throughout, breathing new life into these well-established standards while stamping each song with the warmth and potency of his own personality. Les is ably and abundantly abetted by an all-star cast of Crescent City characters anchored by bassists Alonzo Johnson and Vitas Paukstatis and drummers Dwayne Nelson and Ken Thomas. Raymond Fletcher (organ), Bob Andrews and Nick Farkas (piano) and Keith Vinet take care of the keyboards; Earl Skip  Thompson is on percussions; and the stellar horn section of trumpeter Tracy Griffin and saxophonists Tom Fitzpatrick and Jerry Jumonville is joined by Ruffins and trombonist Corey Henry for the final cut.

Thousands of music-seeking tourists have heard Les Getrex and his band play these numbers night after night on their endless Bourbon Street gigs in the French Quarter of New Orleans, but the good news is that the songs have translated so well to disc, The result is this fine recording, produced under the careful hand of Gary Edwards at his sumptuous Sound of New Orleans studios, and it amounts to a perfect showcase for the fully-matured talent and distinctive sound of Les Getrex. Properly introduced, Les's new legion of fans will surely join this writer in eager anticipation of a set of the guitarist's own songs  but until we get it, this collection of classics will certainly provide many hours of well-rewarded listening.


--Boston
October 4, 2003


(c) 2003, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.


]]> johnsinclair001@hotmail.com (John) New Orleans Fri, 27 Jan 2006 05:37:13 +0000 http://localhost/backup/liner-notes/87-new-orleans/718-little-freddie-king-walkin-with-freddie.html http://localhost/backup/liner-notes/87-new-orleans/718-little-freddie-king-walkin-with-freddie.html
Little Freddie King
Walkin  with Freddie
Music Maker Relief Foundation, 2003

By John Sinclair


Little Freddie King is one of New Orleans  great hidden musical treasures and one of the most beautiful cats one will ever meet to boot. A native of McComb, Mississippi  birthplace of Bo Diddley where he took up with the blues at an early age, Freddie's been a persistent presence in the Crescent City ever since before there was even a Jazz & Heritage Festival, because he's played at every one.

Little Freddie's music is just as raw as his Mississippi roots, yet always deeply imbued with the warmth and sparkle of his very personality, and he has a wonderful knack for reworking classic modern blues compositions into completely personal permutations of these familiar themes.

Walkin  with Freddie presents the one and only Little Freddie King in the excellent company of his working ensemble, anchored by the irrepressible Wacko Wade on drums and topped off by the attentive harmonica of Bobby Lewis.

They sway their way through a prototypical Little Freddie program of wry, strictly idiosyncratic originals ( Tough Frog to Swallow,  Bad Bad News ), a couple of skewed instrumentals and a series of subtly twisted tributes to some of Freddie's favorite composers, here including Frankie Lee Sims, Howlin  Wolf, Albert King, Little Willie Littlefield and the great Guitar Slim.

This is the pure D blues from the land where the blues began by way of the Home of the Blues, good musical fun from way down behind the sun. If you ve heard Freddie's albums for Orleans Records, Swamp Boogie and Sing, Sang, Sung, you ll be overjoyed to hear that Walkin  with Freddie is another unpretentious opus of the exact same caliber of excellence and a highly entertaining outing you re bound to enjoy for years and years to come.


Detroit
September 1, 2003


(c) 2003 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.


]]> johnsinclair001@hotmail.com (John) New Orleans Fri, 27 Jan 2006 05:27:58 +0000 http://localhost/backup/liner-notes/87-new-orleans/717-michael-ray-a-the-cosmic-krewe-live-at-jimmys.html http://localhost/backup/liner-notes/87-new-orleans/717-michael-ray-a-the-cosmic-krewe-live-at-jimmys.html
Michael Ray & the Cosmic Krewe
Live at Jimmy s
Base Camp Records

By John Sinclair


A live concert is the perfect introduction to Michael Ray & the Cosmic Krewe, and this sweaty set of performances from the big stage at Jimmy's in uptown New Orleans during JazzFest is definitely the next best thing to being there.

Of course we re missing the brilliant neon light projections of Jerry Theriot and the high-charged interpretive dancing of Aussetua Amenkin which take the Cosmic Krewe's stage presentations into a whole nother dimension, but the music shines brightly out of the digital grooves of this compact disc and the Krewe is spontaneously enhanced by the presence in its midst of guitarist Trey Anastasio and drummer Jon Fishman of Phish.

Founded in the very early 1990s after trumpeter Michael Ray migrated from the Sun Ra house in Philadelphia to settle in New Orleans, the Cosmic Krewe has slowly and steadily evolved through countless rehearsals and live performances into the hot, tight, fiercely experimental ensemble heard on this recording.

The Krewe has also evolved into sort of a skewed bi-coastal aggregation of stellar instrumentalists drawn from the rich New Orleans music community  Ray, drummer Eddie Dejan and percussionist Michael Skinkus and the far-flung creative precincts of the Northeast, which have yielded up saxophonist Dave The Truth  Grippo, pianist Adam Klipple, trombonist Don Glasgo, bassist Stacy Starkweather and percussionist Steve Ferraris.

A quick look at Michael Ray's musical resume clearly reveals the roots of the unique fusion of experimental jazz and contemporary dance music that he calls cosmic funk.  Since 1978 the trumpet star has functioned as the intergalactic tone specialist  for the Sun Ra Arkestra while serving simultaneously as a key member of the horn section for the popular R&B group Kool & the Gang.

Splitting his work time between these two prominent ensembles, Ray came upon a way to fuse the disparate idioms into a Jazz Funk of the Future  that could take the music straight down the middle of the rhythmic spectrum and all the way out the realm of free group improvisation.

Settled in New Orleans and convalescing from a serious knee injury sustained in a terrible fall from a slippery stage surface while performing an outdoor concert with the Sun Ra Arkestra in 1991, Ray began to develop the concept of the Cosmic Krewe as a means of realizing his musical ideas.

Ray meditated at length on the twin questions of repertoire and personnel, inviting a small cadre of carefully selected musicians to come over and rehearse some Sun Ra compositions and some of Michael's own original works. The neon sculptor Jerry Theriot was a frequent visitor, and he and Michael explored the possibility of incorporatng Theriot's imaginative creations into the Cosmic Krewe's presentations.

A short residency by Sun Ra & the Arkestra at a college in the Northeast opened the door to a second universe of adventurous players Ray could draft into the Cosmic Krewe. Percussionist Steve Ferrari was named Captain of the Krewe, and trombonist Don Glasgo soon proved one of the Krewe's steadiest members. Dave Grippo, Adam Klipple and Stacy Starkweather came in, and Ray formed a close musical friendship with the guys in Phish while performing with the Krewe in the jam band's home base of Burlington, VT.

Soon Ray started bringing his New England mob down to New Orleans for JazzFest performances and recording sessions and mixing them in with stellar Crescent City musicians like Eddie Dejan, guitarist Carl LeBlanc, saxophonists Tony Dagradi, Tim Green and Clarence Johnston III, and a bevy of percussionists including Kenyatta Simon and fellow Sun Ra alumnus Samurai Celestial.

The fully constituted Krewe soon established its reputation for brilliance, intelligence, excitement and daring by means of a series of legendary performances  like the time they almost tore down the Jazz Tent at the Jazz & Heritage Festival when the capacity audience leaped to its feet and started dancing like crazy.

Michael Ray & the Cosmic Krewe can be heard on CD with their debut album on Evidence Records and their 1998 recording for the New Orleans label Monkey Hill, a potent mixture of Sun Ra compositions and original works by Ray and members of the Krewe titled Funk If I Know The disc under hand is the band's first live  recording, and it shows off the Krewe's distinct identity to great effect. The music on this disc is the product of another legendary evening with the Cosmic Krewe: the night Trey Anastasio and Jon Fishman joined the band on-stage at Jimmy's music club for a romp through the Krewe's characteristic repertoire.

There are four Sun Ra numbers, including the classics Astro Black  and Dancing Shadows,  Ray's rearrangement of Ra's space travelogue Saturn #2,  plus Neverness  and Face the Music.  Adam Klipple contributes his composition Pathology,  Don Glasgo reprises his Crescent City tribute, Beans and Rice,  and Ray weighs in with Champions  (a song originally written for Kool & the Gang), the anthemic Earth Rite  and Red & Green,  a neon work devised in collaboration with Jerry Therio.

A great night, a great band and some really great music: That's the Cosmic Krewe live  at Jimmy's one night during JazzFest. Dig it!


New Orleans
October 30, 2002


(c) 2002, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights reserved.


]]> johnsinclair001@hotmail.com (John) New Orleans Fri, 27 Jan 2006 05:18:06 +0000 http://localhost/backup/liner-notes/87-new-orleans/707-kermit-ruffins-a-the-barbecue-swingers-live-at-tips.html http://localhost/backup/liner-notes/87-new-orleans/707-kermit-ruffins-a-the-barbecue-swingers-live-at-tips.html
Live at Tip's
Kermit Ruffins & the Barbecue Swingers
Basn Street Records

By John Sinclair


It's hard to imagine now, but swing was once America's popular music. From the end of the Depression to the end of World War II, guys like Benny Goodman (the "King of Swing"), Glenn Miller, and the Dorsey Brothers hit the top of the charts.

Swing music evolved through the agency of genius Americans like Fletcher Henderson, Duke Ellington, Don Redman, Bennie Moten and the great Louis Armstrong, the trumpet giant from New Orleans who pioneered the role of the jazz soloist.

Swing has always been the thing in New Orleans, and on the present-day scene trumpeter Kermit Ruffins has established himself as its living embodiment, the Big Butter & Egg Man who's gone back to where Pops left off and picked up the torch.

On stage with his blazing new big band and here at Tipitina's with his smoking quintet, the Barbecue Swingers, Ruffins shows off his juicy trumpet chops, his endearingly personal vocal stylings, and a warm, relaxed approach to the music that brings the sound and feeling of the swing era back to contemporary life.

As a man as well as a musician, Kermit Ruffins is as New Orleans as it gets, a truly singular individual who's developed his unique musical persona by exposing himself to an ever-widening circle of influences. Tuned into standard pop and R&B fare as a youth, Kermit acquired his taste for traditional jazz from schoolmate Philip Frazier, a budding tuba player and prospective bandleader with whom he would form the Re-Birth Brass Band in 1982.

Six albums released over the next 12 years propelled Re-Birth into the international spotlight and took the band to Europe, Japan, Africa and all over the USA. Ruffins flourished in the brass band setting, but his voracious listening and study habits led the young trumpet man to seek a broader outlet for his burgeoning musical appetite.

In the early 1990s Ruffins started up a weekly Wednesday night jam band based at the Little People's Place, a tiny watering hole owned by his mother-in-law. Regulars included neighborhood trombonist Corey Henry and drummer Jerry Anderson, two youngsters with big ears and swift chops who shared Kermit's fascination with bebop, swing, big bands, funk and hip-hop.

Wednesday evenings at Little People's featured several hours of great music and culinary kicks provided by Kermit himself--big pots of red beans and rice, turkey necks or file' gumbo. Kermit also cooks for the Sunday afternoon second-lines in Treme, where he follows the crowds in a pick-up truck with a grill smoking on the back and a tub of cold Buds.

After several months the Kermit Ruffins Jam Band had mastered a repertoire of traditional New Orleans, swing band and bebop favorites and started calling itself the Barbecue Swingers. In 1992 Kermit signed a five-year deal as a solo artist with Justice Records and released three fine albums: World on a String, The Big Butter & Egg Man, and Hold On Tight, featuring the regular band members and special guests.

The Barbecue Swingers developed into a popular attraction around town and went out on several well-chosen European tours and U.S. club and festival dates, while Ruffins also began organizing his long-dreamed-of big swing band with charts by Wardell Quezergue, Irving Mayfield and others.

In 1997 Kermit decided not to renew his contract with the Texas firm and struck out on his own, presenting the big band in a series of well-received performances and working up new material with the Barbecue Swingers.

By this time the small group had cohered into a tight, lustrously fluid unit centered on the interplay between Kermit's mighty trumpet and Corey Henry's ever more coherent trombone. Anchored by Emile Vinnett's sparkling piano, the fat sound of Kevin Morris on bass, and the fiercely swinging drums of Jerry Anderson, the Barbecue Swingers address the entire history of the music--from brass band jazz and swing to bebop, hiphop and funk--with a shared fluency in its traditions and a brash, contemporary stance that endears them to people of every sort.

The Barbecue Swingers have also evolved into a perfect vehicle for Kermit's completely distinctive vocal stylings and an effective foil for his earthy, equally distinctive personality, which works well to sell the band's unique repertoire and its penchant for straight-ahead swinging. Kermit exudes down-home New Orleans charm and loves to clown onstage, infusing the band's performances with humor and good feeling.

All of this can be heard on the program under hand, from ancient songs like "St. James Infirmary" to idiosyncratic Ruffins originals like "Smokin' with Some Barbecue" and "What Is New Orleans," street funk grooves like "Do The Fat Tuesday" and a reprise of the Re-Birth favorite, "Do Whatcha Wanna," hip jazz tunes like "Chicken And Dumplings" (clearly a tribute to the godfather of funk, pianist Horace Silver) and "Just Showing Off," plus a thrilling instrumental outing on "Killing Me Softly With His Song" that shows off Ruffins and Corey Henry in all their virtuosoistic glory. Henri Smith from WWOZ Radio brings the band on, and they go off with a crystalline version of Henri's theme, the ever-popular "Star Spangled Banner."

There's nobody else like Kermit Ruffins and no band like the Barbecue Swingers. You can hear that in every phrase from Kermit's mouth and in every note this fantastic New Orleans band plays. It doesn't get any better than this, and if you can't have your fun with this outfit, dear friends, it's time to call the ambulance.


--New Orleans
December 16, 1997


(c) 1997, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.


]]> johnsinclair001@hotmail.com (John) New Orleans Tue, 24 Jan 2006 01:06:45 +0000 http://localhost/backup/liner-notes/87-new-orleans/706-flaming-arrows-here-come-the-indians-now.html http://localhost/backup/liner-notes/87-new-orleans/706-flaming-arrows-here-come-the-indians-now.html
Flaming Arrows
Here Come the Indians Now
Mardi Gras Records

By John Sinclair


The legendary Mardi Gras Indians of New Orleans can be seen in all their splendor on Fat Tuesday, the one day of the year they're allowed to run wild in the streets from dawn to dark.

The people in the poverty-stricken neighborhoods where the Indians hold sway are well versed in the annual ritual and rush eagerly forward to join in the fun, swelling to form the energetic "second line" that envelops, supports and propels the Wild Indian gangs to ever greater exploits of visual art, public song and communal street dancing.

The Mardi Gras Indians revel in revealing their elaborate creations in beadwork, feathers and plumes inspired by the ceremonial and war suits and headdresses of the Plains Indians of the 19th century. On Mardi Gras Day they take to the middle of the street and dance off in search of rival Indian gangs, drawing their neighbors off their stoops and porches to wreathe them with smiles and shouts of recognition and joy.

It's the living manifestation of an age-old ritual preserved and practiced by the descendants of the African slaves in America, which goes back to the perambulating societies of West Africa and their call-and-response chants, and to the secret societies of masked warriors which are common to both African and native American cultures.

It's a ritual which continues to live in the mean streets of end-of-the-century New Orleans and in the hearts of the people of the most run-down, destitute, stripped-bare-and-left-for-dead underclass neighborhoods of the city, where the Wild Indians of Mardi Gras perenially represent the triumph of spirit, creativity, and beauty of song and dance over every obstacle placed in their way.

There's nothing like seeing the Wild Indians in their natural habitat, emerging in all their magnificent finery like eye-popping apparitions out of the doorways of dilapidated inner-city houses and project apartments to strut and swagger down the middle of the beat-up streets where they struggle just like everyone else to make a living and somehow survive the crime, violence, joblessness and grinding poverty of their neighborhoods throughout the rest of the year.

That's the real-life context of the Wild Indians of Mardi Gras, and year after year they manage to rise above the morass of their daily lives to make themselves over as creatures of immense beauty.

Every year, starting around Thanksgiving and continuing every Sunday evening until Mardi Gras, the members and followers of each Wild Indian gang meet up at their favorite neighborhood bar to conduct "Indian practice," a torrid ritual where the traditional chants are rehearsed and refreshed, new chants are introduced and prepared for the streets, the thrilling Indian dances and man-to-man confrontations are tried out and tested in action, old friendships are celebrated and warm new alliances may be formed.

The Indian practices are conducted or supervised by each tribe's Big Chief, who generally leads the singing and directs the course of action in this familiar setting. Other lead singers, either tribe members (Spy Boys, Flag Boys, Trail Chiefs, Wild Men) or second-line regulars and one-time Indians who know how it goes, spell the Big Chiefs throughout the evening, showing off their vocal prowess, firm grasp of the idiom, and power and strength of performance.

The finest singers below the rank of Big Chief are often moved to leave the gang they started with and strike out on their own to form new tribes, drawing followers from friends, family and the immediate neighborhood who will meet each Sunday at a different bar and practice under the personal, moral and musical leadership of the new Chief.

Thus the roster of Wild Indian tribes and the ranks of the singing Big Chiefs continue to grow in New Orleans, extending this unique African-American tradition into the 21st century and beyond. Old-time Indian songs are shared by all the gangs, while newly-devised chants are picked up and passed by word of mouth from one Indian practice to another until you can hear them all over town.

The Flaming Arrows, led by Big Chief Kevin Goodman, used to practice at the Treme Music Hall at Ursulines & North Robertson until it closed. Now they're coming out of the Who Dat bar on the 6th Ward side of Esplanade, led by Goodman's powerful voice, fluent delivery and personal treatment of the established Indian texts.

And they've met up with Milton Batiste, Ken "Afro" Williams and the tight bunch of fine musicians who function as part of Batiste's DuBat Records studio krewe to form a happy musical alliance that's resulted in the splendid recording under hand.

Kevin Goodman and his Flaming Arrows deliver fresh takes on old-time classics like "Shallow Water," "Shoo Fly" and "Sew Sew"; they treat "Corey Died on the Battle Field" to a whole new arrangement; and they offer impassioned versions of modern favorites like "Indians Here We Come," "Let's Go Get 'Em" and "Here Comes The Indians Now," backed by guitarists Harry Sterling and Mario Tio, bassists Harold Scott and Mike Venable, drummer Eneal Wimberly, Bobby Love on organ, and hornmen Joe Saulsbury (saxophones & flute) and Milton Batiste, who adds several delightful trumpet solos to the proceedings.

Producer Ken "Afro" Williams is present on multiple percussions and sings the soulful lead vocal on Bob Marley's "Redemption Song," a welcome addition to the musical program. And the fellows bring in a hip brass band arrangement to set off Goodman's great reading of the well-known "Li'l Liza Jane."

Kevin Goodman is at his very best on the two songs that appear here for the first time on record: the relentless marching anthem, "Hell Out the Way," and the fiercely insistent chant called "My Gang Don't Bow Down," which Goodman fashions into a brilliant testimonial to the legendary, much-loved downtown Indian known as Bird. Both songs are worthy additions to the Wild Indian canon and will doubtless be heard again and again as they pass into the common repertoire.

Kevin Goodman and his Flaming Arrows gang are in the house with something fresh and new, yet completely steeped in the musical and cultural matrix created by the Wild Indians of New Orleans. At Mardi Gras time or any time, their exciting music will now be as close as your turntable and as easy and exhilarating to listen to as anything you can imagine.


New Orleans
March 13, 1997


(c) 1997, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.


]]> johnsinclair001@hotmail.com (John) New Orleans Tue, 24 Jan 2006 01:05:12 +0000 http://localhost/backup/liner-notes/87-new-orleans/705-roland-stone-qliveq-on-the-creole-queen.html http://localhost/backup/liner-notes/87-new-orleans/705-roland-stone-qliveq-on-the-creole-queen.html
Roland Stone
Live  on the Creole Queen
Orleans Records


Roland on the River

By John Sinclair


Many years ago, when this writer was just entering high school, rock & roll was Black music, a hyper offshoot of the segregated rhythm & blues idiom that was propelled into the consciousness of young white Americans by great creators like Chuck Berry and Little Richard, Bo Diddley and Fats Domino.

The fantastic R&B vocal groups like the Clovers, the Drifters, the Moonglows, the Flamingos, Hank Ballard & the Midnighters, the 5  Royales sang their incredible tunes to an ever-widening audience, and the airwaves were filled with beautiful music all day and all night.

By the end of my senior year the whole concept of rock & roll had pretty much been taken over by the white people. Characters like Fabian, Bobby Vee, Dion and the Belmonts, Paul Anka, and Pvt. Elvis Presley had the charts locked up while Black artists strained to reduce their sound to be small enough to fit on to Top 40 radio.

One could take hope only in the emerging Black artists like Jackie Wilson, Sam Cooke, James Brown and Little Willie John, and in the relative handful of young white men who could feel the music inside themselves and make an authentic registration of their feelings in song--people like Buddy Holly, Dale Hawkins, Jimmy Clanton, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Billy Riley.

Their ranks were thin, and most were from the South, where Black music crossed over long ago to influence and inspire two or three generations of white youths, whether they played it themselves or just listened and danced to it as a central focus of their lives.

Here's where we meet the original Roland Stone, a New Orleans native named Roland LeBlanc, who blazed across the radio sky during 1959-61 as a teenage singing sensation with regional hits for Ace Records like "Something Special," "Just a Moment (of Your Time)," and "I Was a Fool" before disappearing--like so many of his peers--into what looked like permanent obscurity.

Roland's short-lived recording career began "when I was a senior in high school, at Warren Easton," he remembers, "playing guitar and singing with a band called the Jokers. That's when I went with Mac Rebennack and the Skyliners. That was in 1959.

"I'll never forget how I met Mac. We were playin' a dance at St. Anthony's on Canal Street, and Mac came up and asked me, 'How'd you like to make some records? Well, I'm an A&R man for Ace Records, and I can get you out on Ace. Quit this band and join my band.'

"Now when I think about it, I was about 17 years old then, and Mac was a year younger than me, so he woulda been 16, and man, he had so much stroke with the record business in New Orleans--a 16-year-old kid!

"Where did I get my stage name? I cut 'Preacher's Daughter,' the first record I ever made in my life, and Joe Coronna said, 'He's got a contract with Ace, so we'll create a label'--the Spinett label--and instead of calling me Roland LeBlanc, because I had a contract with Ace, he says, 'We'll call you Roland, uh, somethin'--Roland Wheels, Roland Dice, Roland Along'.... He says, 'Roland Stone, that's it.'

"This record made a little noise in the city, because a lot of these high school kids--and I was a high school kid myself--they called the radio stations and bugged 'em. They found out that Roland Stone was Roland LeBlanc, and so every time you turned on the radio, they were playin' it.

"'Just a Moment (of Your Time)' was a kick--it was Number One on WNOE, number one on WTIX, the two biggest Top 40 stations in the city. I never made any money off the record, but what did I care? We just had such a great love for the art, and then hearing our records on the radio, and being recognized by people on the street, and seein' those cats that used to be in those teenage bands--the Jokers, the Spades, the Barons, the Esquires--they would come up and say, 'Yeah, you made it, man. You made it. Good.' That was nice."

But the good times ran out before long, and Roland left New Orleans in the mid-1960s to work around Texas as a pianist. He played in several rock bands there but decided to leave the music business in 1978 when a Houston clubowner pressured him to play "Disco Inferno." He chose to work as a welder's helper instead, then returned to New Orleans in 1979 to operate his uncle Vincent's cleaning business on Elysian Fields for the next 12 years.

He was putting in 12-hour days at the cleaners when the boogie lightning struck him again. "We had a real hard freeze one year," Roland remembers, "and out of the clear blue, I get a phone call at the cleaners, and they asked for me by name. They said they were with the Times-Picayune, and they asked me how I coped with the freeze. Then they took a picture of me and ran it in the paper.

"So now, all of a sudden, a lot of people looked at this and said, 'Hey, that's Roland LeBlanc! The guy is not dead!' So they started callin' me at the cleaners."

Meanwhile, a young New Orleans record producer named Carlo Ditta was looking for a guy called Roland Stone who had made an Ace 45 of "I Was A Fool" he'd picked up at a used record store on Airline Highway.

"I kept asking about Roland Stone," Carlo recalls, "and it turned out that the older brother of a friend of mine had grown up with Roland. He told me that Roland was running a cleaners here in town, but I called around to a bunch of cleaners and couldn't find him."

"I came across Carlo Ditta through an old friend, Jules Bauduc," Roland corroborates. "Jules called me at the cleaners one day and said, 'Roland, they got a record out ya just got ta hear. It's by a guy named Willy DeVille, and you gotta hear this record. A local cat, a friend of mine, produced it, and I'd sure like to tie you up with him.'

"So, sure enough, the cat called me one day and said, 'You interested in doing a record?' I said, 'Sure, man.' A couple weeks later he called me back and said, 'Guess what? I talked to Dr. John [Mac Rebennack], and he said he'd love to play on your session. He was thrilled about it, that after all these years you're finally doin' something, and he's gonna get to play on it! Mac was ecstatic.'"

"When I heard that," Roland continues, "I called Mac up and we talked, and we were in a rush to get songs because Mac had to leave. So we went in and did the session in one day, no rehearsal, just playin' songs that both of us knew off the top of our heads.

"I was really happy with this project--I did this with Mac, I did this with Earl Stanley, two cats that I began my recording career with. My professional life began in the band with these two cats, so I was thrilled."

Remember Me was one of the finest New Orleans R&B records released in recent years. The program strikes a lovely balance between rockers, shuffles and ballads, and Roland delivers each song with great power and warmth, his voice ripe with maturity and confidence.

"When I hear Roland sing," Carlo Ditta says, "I know that the music never died. He's singing now better than ever. Not only that, but he's the real thing, and he's got a voice dripping with authenticity and soul."

Remember Me drew enough attention to the rejuvenated Roland Stone that he could draw a featured spot at JazzFest, a rave review in Rolling Stone, an appearance at Piano Night at Tipitina's, and a series of special spotlight performances arranged by Carlo Ditta.

Last year during JazzFest Orleans Records presented Roland Stone in concert on the paddlewheeler Creole Queen, with Ditta at the mobile recording controls to capture the show for Roland's next release. This writer had the honor of hosting Roland's appearance with a very kicking band as we floated down the middle of the Mississippi River on a lovely spring night.

Roland is in splendid form throughout, and the band drives him through a program of New Orleans R&B classics--from Chris Kenner's "Sick and Tired" to Danny White's local favorite, "Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye," from Eddie Bo's "Every Dog Has Its Day" to Aaron Neville's "Waiting at the Station," from Lee Dorsey's immortal "Ya Ya" to Smiley Lewis's "Go On Fool," the rousing closing number.

Roland's ballad hand comes down hard on his own teen classic, "Just A Moment (of Your Time)," the obscure Shields opus "You Cheated, You Lied," and an unattributed doo-wop number, "Is It A Dream."

"I used to do that song with The Jokers, when I was in high school," Roland laughs, "and I knew it from even before that, like way back in the early 50s." He even reaches into his Texas years for a song by his British namesakes called "Honky Tonk Women" and plays it half to death.

What you have here, in a nutshell, is an impassioned presentation of genuine rhythm & blues played by men, like myself, who have magically remained 19 years old for almost 40 years. It's the kind of program played by the kind of band that entertained New Orleans teenagers in high school gymnasiums, CYO clubs, American Legion halls and frat parties back in the days of segregation in the late 1950s and early 60s, and it sounds just as heartfelt and fresh as good rhythm & blues always does.

Stick this disc in your player and come on down to New Orleans for a night of musical fun with the original Roland Stone, rollin' on the river and rockin' up a storm on the riverboat Creole Queen. Or blow it up at a party and shake your ass to these swinging sides. Roland Stone will always be there for you, baby!


--New Orleans
February 21, 1997


(c) 1997, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.


]]> johnsinclair001@hotmail.com (John) New Orleans Tue, 24 Jan 2006 01:03:44 +0000 http://localhost/backup/liner-notes/87-new-orleans/702-rockin-jake-band-lets-go-get-em.html http://localhost/backup/liner-notes/87-new-orleans/702-rockin-jake-band-lets-go-get-em.html
Let's Go Get 'Em
The Rockin' Jake Band
Rabadash Records

By John Sinclair


Larry "Rockin' Jake" Jacobs is a fresh-faced harmonica whiz from the East Coast who's carved out a home for himself in the modern-day music world of New Orleans with his Rockin' Jake Band, now showcased on disc with a diverse program of original material and a sparkling array of guest stars to boot.

The Rockin' Jake Band, anchored by bassist Angelo "Funky Knuckles" Nocentelli and the energetic Earl J. Smith Jr. on drums, has secured a measure of popularity on the Crescent City nightlife scene with its hard-hitting attack featuring the funky guitar stylings of Chip Wilson and the wailing harp of Rockin' Jake, voted New Orleans' No. 1 blues harmonica player in the 1996 OffBeat magazine poll.

Let's Go Get 'Em isn't just another blues record. This album is something different: an excursion into musical eclecticism that turns the spotlight on the creative contributions of each of the members of the band as they stretch out in unexpected directions.

Within the context of their working band, Rockin' Jake, Angelo Nocentelli and Chip Wilson have forged a writing partnership well represented in this set by "Paradise Ride," "Bayou Sunset," "Secret Name," "Them So Bad" (with T.J. Wheeler, an old partner of Jake's from the New England blues scene, on dobro behind the lead vocal of Chip Wilson), and "Me & My Brothers," which features a rap vocal by word craftsman "The Creeper," a.k.a. Jessie Baumler Hebert.

Producer John Autin contributes to their "Attracted to the Light" (a heart-felt duet sung by Maria Muldaur and Cornell Williams), and Autin's own "New Lover" is presented as a vehicle for the soulful singing voice of drummer Earl J. Smith Jr.

Jake's hot harp is also at the wheel for "Paradise Ride," backed by the rollicking piano of the legendary Eddie Bo, and Jake's at the front of the pirogue to lead the band through a picturesque "Bayou Sunset," with a lovely vocal line by Theresa Anderson that floats like a warm Louisiana breeze.

Jake teams up with guitarist Anders Osborne on an unrehearsed, spontaneous duet improvisation titled "Bigger Than God Himself" that flowed out from the two players as soon as they sat down and let the tape start rolling. The little songlets scattered throughout the CD program also stem from this elongated jam.

The band throws out a shoot to the roots with a pair of tunes associated with Angelo's brother, Leo Nocentelli, guitarist for the original Meters. Lee Dorsey's "Everything I Do Gonh Be Funky (From Now On)" brings out the great Tommy Ridgley to sing the lead; and "Sophisticated Cissy," a tribute to the Meters' own first release, has Meterman George Porter, Jr. producing and playing bass. Rockin' Jake simulates the organ sound of the Meters' Art Neville by blowing his chromatic harmonica through a set of Leslie speakers.

The jubilant party song here is the riotous salute to Mardi Gras on Bourbon Street called "Show Me Your Pretties," by Rockin' Jake & the Carnival Kings. This Rockin' Jake-T.J. Wheeler ditty was fleshed out by Angelo Nocentelli and delivered by vocalist Oliver "Who Shot The La-La" Morgan, an exhilarating performer who bills himself as "New Orleans' Greatest Entertainer" and certainly lives up to his billing here.

It should be mentioned that the guest stars on this album are not a bunch of randomly selected "name" artists whose numbers the producer happened to have in his Rolodex, but long-time friends and musical associates of Rockin' Jake and the fellas. The Rockin' Jake Band backed Tommy Ridgley at the 1995 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival and has toured Scandanavia with Oliver Morgan. Jake has also worked as featured soloist with Maria Muldaur on several recent tours and appears on Maria's 1993 Black Top recording, Louisiana Love Call.

Since its formation at Mardi Gras 1995, the Rockin' Jake Band itself has backed up blues and R&B stars like Billy Boy Arnold, Eddie Bo, Guitar Slim Jr., and Tab Benoit. The band has opened for Dr. John, Jr. Walker & The All-Stars, Branford Marsalis & Buckshot LeFonque, the Dirty Dozen, the Neville Brothers, and B.B. King, and has toured New England and Scandanavia as well as throughout the South.

Rockin' Jake has come a long way since he picked up his first harmonica in 1975 and blasted out into New England in the '8O's with his notorious ensemble, Rockin' Jake and The Rollercoasters.

Since moving to New Orleans in 1990, Jake has performed and recorded with some of the city's most renowned R&B stars, including Tommy Ridgley, Tab Benoit, Marva Wright, Oliver Morgan, Luther Kent, Walter "Wolfman" Washington, and Big Daddy Reed, and he's a featured member of this writer's ensemble, John Sinclair & His Blues Scholars.

Now he's got a fine digital document of some of the other things on his mind, and it's high time for Rockin' Jake to be heard.


--New Orleans
March 23, 1996


(c) 1996, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.


]]> johnsinclair001@hotmail.com (John) New Orleans Tue, 24 Jan 2006 00:49:57 +0000 http://localhost/backup/liner-notes/87-new-orleans/701-milton-batiste-a-the-magnificent-sevenths-bourbon-street-blues.html http://localhost/backup/liner-notes/87-new-orleans/701-milton-batiste-a-the-magnificent-sevenths-bourbon-street-blues.html
Bourbon Street Blues
Milton Batiste & the Magnificent Sevenths
Featuring "Big" Al Carson
Mardi Gras Records

By John Sinclair


Bourbon Street between Iberville down to St. Ann is something else. Not so much an entertainment strip as a rollicking carnival midway designed for tourists to debauch themselves in a kind of ratty Disneyland setting operated by weirdos and hustlers of every description, Bourbon Street is perhaps distinguished only by its several music spots offering a nightly variety of blues, R&B, traditional jazz, and straight-out commercial pop.

In fact, the music starts in the afternoon at a number of these joints and continues until the wee hours of the morning, with plenty of blues to be heard in its many incarnations by great performers like Willie Lockett & the Blues Krewe, Gary Brown & Feelings, Bryan Lee & His Jump Street 5, organist Marc Adams, the Rockin' Jake Band, Ironing Board Sam, J. Monque'D and others.

Walk down Bourbon Street just as things get to jumping and you'll hear music blasting out from the bars and nightspots like nowhere else--everything from Motown hits to Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington to Tina Turner, the latest hits to the oldest of blues and jazz standards. The works of blues giants like Freddie King, Smiley Lewis, Albert King, Ray Charles, B.B. King, even Bessie Smith and Lonnie Johnson may be heard all dressed up in contemporary garb and played as if they'd been thought up on the way to the gig.

Milton Batiste & the Magnificent Sevenths have turned their musical attention to this portion of the traditional New Orleans repertoire for their new Mardi Gras Records album, paying their respects to some of the popular blues styles and timeless tunes that have entertained so many people on Bourbon Street--and all over the world--for so many years.

Vocalist Big Al Carson is in the spotlight all the way, leading the Magnificent Sevenths through a 12-course musical feast that features early blues classics like "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" and "St. James Infirmary," and swing-era favorites "Things Ain't What They Used to Be" and "God Bless' the Child". He rocks the Ray Charles hit "I Got a Woman" and rolls Memphis Slim's "Every Day I Have the Blues" in grand fashion.

The lead-off cut, "Watermelon Man," sets a nice pace, treating the Herbie Hancock composition that's become a blues standard to a great set of lyrics and Big Al's rollicking delivery. Modern blues hits get a big play too, as the fellows salute Albert King with "Born Under a Bad Sign" and Freddy King with "Big Legged Woman." And for blues ballads there's the well-known "Georgia" and the obscure Smiley Lewis/Dave Bartholomew gem, "I Want To Be With Her."

The band swings along on the genuine New Orleans rhythms laid down by drummer Eneal Wimberly, bassist Harold Scott, guitarists Mario Tio and Harry Sterling and conga man Ken "Afro" Williams, who gets the lead vocal on "Trouble In Mind." Pianist Rickie Monie sparkles throughout, sharing the solo spotlight with leader Milton Batiste on trumpet, the great Fred Kemp on tenor sax, and Dirty Dozen stalwart Roger Lewis on baritone saxophone.

So make your trip to Bourbon Street complete with this musical momento from Milton Batiste and the Magnificent Sevenths. Take home the sounds of Big Al Carson and the band and let them walk you down the Street of Sin again and again to your heart's content, wherever you are.


--New Orleans
January 1997


(c) 1997, 2006 John Sinclair. All Rights Reserved.


]]> johnsinclair001@hotmail.com (John) New Orleans Tue, 24 Jan 2006 00:49:15 +0000