Somehow, New Orleans' Famous Beat Goes On

By BAIRD HELGESON bhelgeson@tampatrib.com

Published: Jan 2, 2006

NEW ORLEANS - Dee Blackman cracked a wide smile as Grandpa playfully pressed a microphone to his mostly toothless mouth.

"What if I was rich?" he crooned as Blackman gently flicked the strings of her guitar. "What if I was rich? ..."

The crowd that grew on the sidewalk outside Cafe Du Monde applauded and clicked photos on camera phones.

"How was that?" he asked sweetly.

The crowd tossed $1 bills into a nearby basket, the going rate for enjoying the good vibe or a photo of the street-worn musician.

The once-common scene is rare these days, but displaced musicians such as Grandpa are trickling back to street corners in the French Quarter and bars on Magazine Street, proof that at least for now the music is returning to the Big Easy.

When Hurricane Katrina flooded 80 percent of the city four months ago, thousands of fledgling and famous musicians dispersed throughout the country.

The famously musical city that inspired Louis Armstrong, the Neville Brothers and Dr. John was suddenly without its musical heartbeat.

Many musicians took gigs in their exiled cities to make money and express grief about their city, once a gumbo of blues, jazz and zydeco.

Even Grandpa - whose real name is Elliot Small - met up with friends to play in Lubbock, Texas, and Jackson, Miss., before returning to New Orleans in early December.

"This is my home," said Grandpa, 61, whose best-known hit "I am a Devil" turns up on several blues compilation albums. "I had to come back."

But many don't plan to return, lured away by lucrative gigs in other towns or concerned that New Orleans' tourist-driven economy will never be robust again. That has left many aficionados wondering about the future of New Orleans music.

"It will never again be like it was," said Michael Ross, a history professor at Loyola University New Orleans.

Many better-known bands went to Austin, Texas, the self-proclaimed Live Music Capital of the World.

Among them are Cyril Neville and Tribe 13, the Hot Eight Brass Band, and Big Chief Kevin Goodman of the Flaming Arrows Mardi Gras Indian tribe. A few even formed an ad hoc band called The Texiles.

Backbone Of The City

With so many musicians missing, bands must retool with the ragtag group left around town. It's more common for musicians to be in several bands, playing blues for one gig, jazz for another and Cajun the next.

The Spotted Cat, a tiny jazz club where stiff drinks are $2, was among the first to reopen with live music.

On a recent night, The Rebecca Barry Quartet played for a handful of locals who returned to the storm-battered neighborhood still largely without power.

The band embodies the New Orleans music scene after Katrina. Barry, the namesake tenor saxophone player, tended to a sick relative and couldn't make the show. The other members played in several bands, rarely as that quartet, and were freshly back to New Orleans.

"Music is just at the bare essence of the city," said Spike Perkins, 51, who plays the stand-up bass. "You can take everything else away, and the music will always return."

Donald McCready sipped whiskey and Coke while his Siamese kitten, Angel, rested on his shoulder. He rescued the cat when he evacuated to Utah.

"The city is nothing without its music," said McCready, 65. "You can rebuild all the homes you want. It's not New Orleans without the music."

'We'll Play Anything For $5'

Many musicians who struggled in the previously rollicking Bourbon Street clubs returned to establishments that are mostly empty, where tips are a fraction of what they were before the storm.

Once-packed streets of beer-gulping, bead-tossing tourists are left mostly to a few local stragglers, police and National Guard members who patrol past strip clubs, souvenir shops and bars.

The boozy establishments along Bourbon Street generally appeal more to tourists than locals, who prefer grittier uptown clubs such as Le Bon Temps Roules, the Maple Leaf and Tipitina's.

These days, empty barrooms can make for brash pleas for tips on Bourbon Street.

"Wow, it's so great to see all you people here," Janson Lohmeyer, keyboardist and singer for a zydeco band called the Bonoffs, said to a half-empty Bourbon Street bar. "We'll play anything you want for $5. We are that broke."

Despite financial uncertainty, many musicians feel a duty to bring back music to a city that survived fires, floods and a yellow fever epidemic.

"This city, like no other city, relies on music," said Willie Lockett, lead singer for the All Purpose Blues Band, a staple of the Bourbon Street music scene. "The people can't function and the bars can't function without it."

A Little Help From Friends

Music is not returning on its own. Several charities work to find housing, health care and instruments for returning musicians.

Habitat for Humanity is considering buying a couple of storm-damaged blocks and building a village for artists and musicians.

Dean Groover tools around the French Quarter on his bicycle, dropping $100 bills in street performers' baskets.

Groover runs Musicians Charity.com, which he said has raised thousands of dollars to help find housing and phone service for exiled musicians. His Web site features a picture of a storm-sloshed tuba sporting a bumper sticker that reads: "New Orleans - Proud to call it home."

"Musicians are having trouble staying here because they can't find work," he said after dropping a $100 bill in Grandpa's basket. "I don't know how much longer we can keep them going, but we have to try."

The Tipitina's Foundation, a nonprofit spinoff of the legendary club, created the New Orleans Artist Relief Effort. It's a drop-in center where musicians can eat and get help finding gigs and replacing their instruments.

"The music is going to be back," said Adam Shipley, general manager for the foundation. "We're definitely going to lose some of the musicians, but it will be back."

It's Back, But It's Different

Some worry that music won't return to areas, such as the storm-ravaged 9th Ward, that were incubators for New Orleans' famed sound. Surging water from a levy breach crushed the lower portion of the neighborhood, toppling homes and pushing cars more than a mile.

Before Katrina, residents lined the streets on weekends and cheered as jazz bands paraded for hours. Now tourists stop at the destroyed home of rhythm-and-blues pianist Fats Domino, who escaped by boat.

"We are going to lose some layers of music in the city," famed bass player George Porter Jr. said as he set up for a gig at Le Bon Temps Roules, French for "The Good Time Rolls."

"Those musicians are still out there somewhere. But I don't think we'll ever get them together in the same area of town again."

Those who already returned are trying, though.

On New Year's Eve, Tipitina's hosted a traditional, brassy street parade to kick off a fundraiser for displaced musicians. But rather than being in the working-class 9th Ward, the event took place in the stately uptown neighborhood. Also, half the band members live in New York.