In the past couple years, I’ve developed a pretty serious addiction to old New Orleans records. Growing up in Jackson, Mississippi, I was pretty constantly being washed over by the wake of New Orleans culture, and always had a pretty serious aversion to New Orleans music, the same way that Irish friends of mine cringe whenever they hear traditional Irish tunes like “Danny Boy” (check out my blog on Powells.com for more about this). SInce the storm, though, I have given into my destiny of loving old New Orleans funk, soul and r n’ b. What did it for me was a tape of Soul Jazz records’ anthology Saturday Night Fish Fry, a two disc collection of rare to not-so-rare tracks from the Read the rest of this entry »

 

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by Sam Winston

The Crescent City seems to have a way of attracting this kind of energy…

“Verita Bouvaire Thompson, the hard-drinking mistress and long-time companion of Humphrey Bogart who described herself as ‘Bacall’s worst nightmare’, has died aged 89…

Following Hurricane Katrina, Thompson was one of those who refused to leave her home. She commented: ‘Lauren Bacall failed to chase me out of Hollywood; Katrina won’t force me out of New Orleans.’

by Sam Winston

” Sara Roahen has written a surprisingly informative, engaging and amusing book about the cooking of New Orleans — surprisingly, that is, because she is an outsider who yearns to be accepted as an authentic New Orleanean…

It’s not easy to imagine someone coming into New Orleans from the cold and writing a regular column about its food, but apparently Roahen did so with aplomb and won a loyal readership in the process. ” - The Washington Post

Gambit itself also gets props as a “lively” newspaper.