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New Orleans to bounce back
17/02/2006 08:08 - (SA)
New Orleans - Let the Good Times Roll!
Vowing to gather the biggest names in music to celebrate New Orleans, organisers of Jazz Fest on Wednesday unveiled an eclectic line-up with the likes of Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and Keith Urban along with local legends like Fats Domino.
"We're inviting the world to come. But we really want New Orleanians to come. We want to say to all New Orleanians everywhere that this is your homecoming dance and this is your homecoming band," said New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival producer Quint Davis.
The festival, which will run on two weekends, April 28 to April 30 and then from May 5 to May 7, ranks as one of the biggest traditional tourist draws for New Orleans after Mardi Gras, which gets under way this month.
Much-needed therapy
Plans for the festival have been followed closely by local merchants and residents, most of whom remain shut out of their homes because of the flood damage that followed Hurricane Katrina in August.
"Find a way to come back because this is where your heart is," singer Irma Thomas said in an appeal to the city's hundreds of thousands of displaced residents. "(The) festival will be the therapy we all feel we need."
Davis said headline talent in the festival, which includes Jimmy Buffett, Lionel Richie, the Dave Matthews Band and Elvis Costello, had agreed to work for concessional rates.
At one point, it looked as if the festival might have to be scaled down or scrapped but sponsors Shell Oil and American Express stepped in to underwrite some of the cost, Davis said.
Several New Orleans musicians said there was a special poignancy to the city's first big music event since Katrina.
Home is where the heart is
"New Orleans is my home. I don't care how many hurricanes come through here. I'll be living in New Orleans," said Clarence "Frogman" Henry, who attended Wednesday's announcement in a tuxedo and with a walker.
Henry, who scored a hit with his 1956 novelty song Ain't Got No Home in which he famously brags about his ability to sing as both "a girl" and "a frog", said his home sustained relatively minor damage from Katrina.
"We've got a little bit of work to do, but the Lord has blessed me and spared me," he said.
Thomas, known as "The Soul Queen of New Orleans", said she was living in nearby Gonzales, Louisiana, while rebuilding her flood-damaged home in the city.
"I have got to get home or my husband is going to drive me up a wall. He misses it so much," she said.
The Jazz Fest promotional poster features an image of Fats Domino rollicking at the piano.
The rock-and-roll pioneer, whose hits include Ain't That A Shame, and Walking to New Orleans, had been feared dead in the flooding that hit his neighbourhood in the Lower Ninth Ward. But he survived and plans to play at the festival.
A full schedule of performances will be posted on the festival's website: www.nojazzfest.com.
- Reuters
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South Africa
