New Orleans Music

My cousin's husband, Paul Soniat (photo posted yesterday), has a gig at the "Parkway Tavern and Bakery" (funny name for a poor-boy place that, post-Katrina, closes at 7 p.m.). He plays there (on Toulouse, near Bayou St. John) on the first Saturday of the month. So yesterday several family members went there for poor-boys and music. I have Paul's CD, "Born in New Orleans" (made me cry during the worst of the flooding) and today I have news for anyone who ever worried that Katrina would deal a death-blow to New Orleans music. Paul has already written the first generation of songs dealing with the experience of destruction and loss from Katrina. The new blues are being written now. While Paul's song, "My Hometown New Orleans" (available as a download from the bottom of this linked page) is poignant with its references to "my mother's house is gone, my brother's, too" (Paul's mother did indeed lose her house, and it was his sister, not a brother, who also lost hers), I thought the song "Below the Water Line" was even more evocative with the refrain (these are the words I remember; it was a double couplet), "The water came in, didn't leave me a thing below the water line."

If you look in the photo, you can see that water line on the wall to the left. The proprietor's FEMA trailer is behind Paul. This being a sunny day in New Orleans, we ate outside, of course.