Sunday, May 26, 2013

Owen Murphy Award Winning Photographs

Pontchartrain Light




Bridge at Port Arthur




Ted Carter has been awarded the Owen Murphy Award at the New Orleans Academy of Fine Arts - and has three photographs in the student exhibit - one of the photographs is actually a series of five photos called Dance ...


Sunday, May 5, 2013

That wonderfully human miracle - Music.

The Red Stick Ramblers from Baton Rouge




 
AND the GREAT - Chubby Carrier and the
Bayou Swamp Band..
 
 



 







 








 




Yvette Landry


Cha Wa with Eric Boudreaux











 
 
 
 
 
The Lawtell Playboys have been around since
1946 playing old time
traditional Creole and Cajun music..

 

Saturday, May 4, 2013

Jazz Fest - Day Five 2013

BeauSoleil at 2006 Jazz Fest *


many years ago I stood chest deep in warm Tampa Bay water
as Jimmy Buffet sang his ass off
and I reflected on how much I loved music

yesterday I stood ankle deep in cold wet mud and horsehit
while Michael Doucet and Jo el Sonnier avec Beausoleil*
played their ass off
I reflected on how much
the cajun joy of living
fills their music

there is something about stage musicians
who truly love what they do
makes their music fill you
with their passion and their love

shivering I ended the day at the Gentilly Stage
we all wept just a little
including Marcia when she played "Louisiana"
and splattered the mud with dance steps
and sang along with "Louella"  and "That's enough of that stuff"
in time with her swinging leg

and afterwords
I wandered home, cold and tired, with a head full of music and
my heart warm with the smiles of a friend..

Marcia Ball in the Blues Tent Jazz Fest 2010 **

* (photo courtesy of Wikipedia)

BeauSoleil, founded in 1975, released its first album in 1977. One of the most well known bands performing traditional Cajun and Creole music rooted in the folk tunes of Lousiaiana, BeauSoleil tours extensively.

While its repetoire includes hundreds of traditional Cajun, Creole,and Zydeco songs, BeauSoleil has pushed past those contraints to include elements of rock and roll, jazz. blues, calypso, and other genres in original compostions and re-arrangements of traditional tunes. Many of their songs blend both Cajun French and English.

The band's name is a tribute to Joseph Broussard dit Beausoliel, the leader of the Acadian resistance to British deportation efforts beginning in 1755. Broussard led the attack against Dartmouth Nova Scotia, in what would become known as the "Dartmouth Massacre". Beausoleil was eventually captured, but following his imprisonment managed to lead 193 exiles to Louisiana before he died in 1765.

** (photo © Ted Carter)

A well-established presence on the Austin, Texas, and New Orleans music scene, pianist-singer Marcia Ball performs a jubilant, heartfelt brand of Louisiana-Texas rhythm and blues,  Part James Booker and part Professor Longhair, with a sultry, bluesy vocal delivery , her rollicking style is particularly impressive during live concerts, when the audience can witness her scream, shout, and wring every drop of emotion out of song, while playing piano in her trademarked, cross-legged style.

Born in Orange, Texas, and raised in Vinton, Louisiana, Ball comes from a long line of instrumentalists: her grandmother was a pianist, her father was a composer, and her aunt was a pianist. The local Cajun sounds and the soul music she heard on local radio stations played roles in developing her musical tastes.

At the age of 13, she saw soul crooner Irma Thomas in concert in New Orleans, and the amazingly energetic Thomas left a lasting impression on Ball and furthered her interest in performing.

Small state-border clubs with names like the Texas Pelican Club, Lou Ann's, and the Showboat Club lined the roads on the outskirts of Vinton, beckoning to the young Ball to try her hand at performing. She took voice lessons at age 18 and, while studying English literature and journalism at Louisiana State University in the late 1960s, was the lead singer of a band called Gum. In 1970 she moved to Austin, Texas.

In 1978 Ball had her first appearance at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. She then released Circuit Queen on Capital Records, a hybrid album of country music and rhythm and blues.  Her fist albun was not well accepted, and Ball would not record again until 1983. That release, Soulful Dress on Rounder Records, contains signature tunes such as"Soul on Fire" and Chuck Berry's Louisiana love song "Eugene." The LP received warm praise and was followed in 1985 by Hot Tamale Baby.

 Ball now tackles approximately 150 live dates a year in venues where her name is synonymous with New Orleans-style piano playing and rhythm and blues.

 Marcia Ball bio by B. Kimberly Taylor and Ken Burke