Loose Leaf Notes

I appreciate New Orleans jazz and a big brass band sound, but I’m more of a rock and roller at heart.  I grew up loving Motown, singer songwriter folksongs, psychedelic rock, Led Zeppelin and the rest.  I like some funk, rhythm and blues and am a fan of all the great lead guitarists.

While staying in the French Quarter recently, Joe and I sampled some fine street and jazz club music, but it wasn’t until the first day of the French Quarter Festival, a yearly free event that spotlights local music stars, that I really felt at home.  It was the original music of New Orleanean George Porter Jr. and the Runnin Pardners on a stage alongside the Mississippi River that got me to stay put and got me up dancing.

He felt familiar.  Was it generational?  Was that a bit of tie dye on his t-shirt? I really loved his sweet song about old friends gone and that before starting it he called out to a friend, Teddy, and said, “Thanks for bringing my mom to the gig.”  I also liked that he performed with his daughter.

When we got home, I googled George Porter to find out more about his music and discovered that he had not only been here in Floyd (VA) but that I actually had a blog post about him with his picture front and center! Porter, who I think would be a great Floydfest headliner, is mostly known for the band he co-founded with one of the Neville Brothers in the mid ‘60s, The Meters.  But he also plays with the 7 Walkers, the band that Bill Kreutzmann of the Grateful Dead put together after Jerry Garcia died. (Note: that’s Joe dancing in the left hand corner.)

The 7 Walkers played at Floyd’s Dogtown Roadhouse in 2011.  It was a show that remains a personal highlight of my Dogtown dancing days.  Here’s what I wrote in a post titled The Sound of San Francisco Meets New Orleans:  It was jam sweet, funky and fresh with New Orleans musician Papa Mali, who has said he was inspired by Dr. John and others, whose voice reminds me of early Leon Russell and whose guitar playing can rival that of Garcia. Other band members are bass guitarist George Porter, a founding member of the 60/70’s funk band The Meters, and keyboardist Matt Hubbard, who occasionally pulled out a big old New Orleans horn or a harmonica, and who is best known for his work with Willie Nelson.  Kreutzmann’s mother was born in New Orleans so it’s a fit that works. I think Bill was smart to wait to find the right musical components to create a band that would embody such heart after Jerry died. Read the rest HERE. 

Another Floydish connection happened when we were catching a shuttle to Mardi Gras World that was leaving from the Hilton Hotel.  The hotel concierge noticed a monogram of the Floyd Great Oaks Country Club (where Joe plays golf) on Joe’s shirt and asked where that was.  As Joe explained, at one point he said, “It’s near Blacksburg,” and the concierge told Joe that his good friend Nikki Giovanni lived in Blacksburg. He, Michael Murphy, published her “Love Poems” in 1997 when he was the publisher at William Morrow.

I told him about sitting in on Nikki’s creative writing classes years ago, seeing her shopping at Walmart and how she had forgotten her guest speaker engagement for the launch of the new incarnation of Artemis, a local literary art journal that was dedicated to her and in which I also had a poem in.  But she was such a good sport that she came and made a good story out of it all, and it prompted THIS blog post: She May Have Been Late But She Wore Great Shoes.  (Note: That’s me and my best new friend Marcus posing for someone else’s selfie above.)

Once home I googled the former publisher, hotel concierge and there was his picture big as life.   I discovered that he went from publishing to being a literary agent and that he was the author of the book I had been seeing all over town: Eat Dat.  Next time I’m in New Orleans, I’ll not only get me a copy of Michael’s book, I’ll try out some of his best restaurant suggestions and I’ll know where to get the book signed. _______Our World Tuesday