Showing posts with label Rounder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rounder. Show all posts

Friday, January 25, 2013

Duane Allman 'Skydog' retrospective coming on Rounder









SKYDOG: THE DUANE ALLMAN RETROSPECTIVE
CHRONICLES GROUNDBREAKING GUITARIST’S CAREER,
FROM GARAGE BANDS AND R&B SESSION WORK
TO THE ALLMAN BROTHERS AND DEREK & THE DOMINOS

Seven CD set, due out March 5 on Rounder Records,
 includes rare recordings by Allman’s early bands:
the Escorts, Allman Joys, the 31st of February, and the Bleus.
Extensive liner notes are accompanied by
a tribute from Allman’s daughter.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Even if he’d never formed the Allman Brothers Band, Duane Allman would be a major figure in American popular music. Long before his name became known to mainstream audiences, he had already established his credentials as a once-in-a-lifetime guitar visionary, leaving his unmistakable stamp on a broad array of recordings. On March 5, 2013, Rounder Records, a division of Concord Music Group, will release the most ambitious retrospective of Allman’s short but influential career titled Skydog: The Duane Allman Retrospective.

The deluxe seven-disc collection, carrying a list price of $139.98, contains the guitarist’s best-known and most commercially successful recordings with the Allman Brothers Band and Derek & the Dominos, as well as session work with Aretha Franklin, Wilson Pickett, Boz Scaggs, Clarence Carter, King Curtis, Delaney & Bonnie & Friends, Ronnie Hawkins, Otis Rush, Laura Nyro, Lulu, the Sweet Inspirations, Laura Lee, Spencer Wiggins, Arthur Conley, Willie Walker, the Lovelles, the Soul Survivors, Johnny Jenkins, John Hammond, Doris Duke, Eric Quincy Tate, Herbie Mann and more.

The set was produced by Galadrielle Allman (Duane’s daughter) and two-time Grammy® winning producer Bill Levenson. Rounder Records’ Scott Billington served as executive producer. Scott Schinder contributed comprehensive historical liner notes, complemented by additional notes by Galadrielle Allman.

In her recollection of her father, who died when she was a young child, Galadrielle writes, “I am very lucky that my father is Duane Allman, an artist who left behind a wealth of incredible music . . . Working on this retrospective, I have gotten closer than I ever have been to understanding my father’s development as a musician and a man.”

Duane Allman, known to his bandmates as Skydog, was born in Nashville in 1946. With Gregg, his only sibling, Duane had his first moment of musical revelation upon witnessing a late ’50s R&B bill that featured B.B. King and Jackie Wilson. By 1960, both Duane and Gregg owned guitars and played in a series of neighborhood garage bands in Tennessee and Florida. Continuing their interest in blues and R&B in the shadow of blues radio station WLAC-AM’s continent-spanning signal, as well as absorbing the influence of the British Invasion, the brothers launched the Escorts in 1965 and the Allman Joys, who recorded a handful of sides in Bradley’s Barn in Nashville in 1966. By 1967, Duane and Gregg signed to Liberty as the Hour Glass and recorded two albums in Nashville and Los Angeles. When the band sought to defy the label and spread its musical wings, they were dropped. The brothers returned to Florida, hooked up with drummer Butch Trucks, and recorded two sides as the 31st of February, and later at Ardent Studio in Memphis as the Bleus.

By this time Duane had developed a reputation as a leading session guitarist. He was on Fame Studio’s A list, his guitar licks coloring hits by Wilson Pickett. Atlantic Records producer and executive Jerry Wexler took note and hired him to perform on Atlantic sessions by King Curtis, Otis Rush, Arthur Conley, the Soul Survivors and Sweet Inspirations. Wexler signed him to a solo Atlantic deal, resulting in a session that contained the raucous original “Happily Married Man” and more. The session, contained on the Skydog set, was abandoned mid-stream. But by then Capricorn Records’ Phil Walden had noticed the rumblings from Muscle Shoals. Duane gathered up brother Gregg, Dickey Betts, Berry Oakley, Butch Trucks, Jai Johanny Johanson and others and the Allman Brothers Band was born.

According to reissue annotator Schinder, “The [Allman Brothers Band’s] music was complex and adventurous, yet unfailingly accessible. The subtle and harmonic interplay between Duane and Dickey’s dual lead guitars was matched by the three-man rhythm section’s surging, swinging cross-rhythms, with Gregg’s massively expressive singing and organ playing keeping the music firmly grounded in human emotion.” The band’s profile grew with each release — the self-titled debut, Idlewild South and eventually the band’s breakthrough, At Fillmore East.

Testament to his energy and ambition, Duane still found time for side projects. When bandmates would hole up at home after tours, Duane joined fellow world-class guitarist Eric Clapton on Derek & the Dominos’ Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. While not an official member, he quickly emerged as a major contributor to the classic album, his twin guitar interplay with Clapton shaping the hits “Layla” and “Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad.” He also worked with Delaney & Bonnie & Friends and Laura Nyro between Allman Brothers Band projects.

By then acknowledged as one of rock’s premier guitarists, Duane and the Allman Brothers Band began recording their follow-up to At Fillmore East — Eat a Peach. Tom Dowd, another legendary Atlantic house producer, oversaw sessions at Criteria Studios. Then on October 29, 1971, four days after Fillmore had been certified gold, Duane was riding his motorcycle and swerved to avoid hitting a truck. He crashed and died of internal injuries. He was 24 years old.
The band forged ahead as a quintet on Eat a Peach, which became one of their best selling albums. The Allman Brothers, led by Gregg Allman and Butch Trucks, continue to perform to this day.

Schinder notes, “More than four decades after his death, Duane Allman remains a towering figure whose stature has only increased in his absence. His influence lives on, not only in the multiple generations of guitarists who have been motivated by his input, but also in the legions of listeners who have continued to find inspiration in his vibrant vision of American music, which remains as fresh and truthful today as when it was created.”

 “When a musician of my father’s caliber dies, every note he ever recorded becomes even more precious,” writes Galadrielle. “Each song is pressed into the service of telling his story. The longer Duane is gone, the clearer it becomes that there will never be another like him.”

Over seven discs, Skydog tells the Duane Allman story with rare and never-before-heard gems alongside smash hits.

“I hope the celebration of Duane’s life inspires you to live fearlessly and enjoy life,” Galadrielle concludes. “I know that would have made him proud.”

Disc One
 1            THE ESCORTS  Turn On Your Love Light  2:33
  2            THE ESCORTS  No Name Instrumental  3:13
  3            THE ESCORTS  What’d I Say  4:04
  4            THE ALLMAN JOYS  Spoonful  2:27
  5            THE ALLMAN JOYS  Gotta Get Away  2:38
  6            THE ALLMAN JOYS  Shapes Of Things  2:47
  7            THE ALLMAN JOYS  Crossroads  3:32
  8            THE ALLMAN JOYS  Mister, You’re A Better Man Than I  4:45
  9            THE ALLMAN JOYS  Lost Woman  5:23
10            HOUR GLASS  Cast Off All My Fears  3:31
11            HOUR GLASS  I’ve Been Trying  2:39
12            HOUR GLASS  Nothing But Tears  2:29
13            HOUR GLASS  Power Of Love  2:51
14            HOUR GLASS  Down In Texas  3:08
15            HOUR GLASS  Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)  3:01
16    HOUR GLASS  B.B. King Medley 7:07
17            HOUR GLASS  Been Gone Too Long  3:03
18            HOUR GLASS  Ain’t No Good To Cry  3:08
19            31ST OF FEBRUARY  Morning Dew  3:46
20            31ST OF FEBRUARY  Melissa  3:12
21            THE BLEUS  Milk And Honey  2:34
22            THE BLEUS  Leavin’ Lisa  2:43
23            THE BLEUS  Julianna’s Gone  2:59

Disc Two
 1            CLARENCE CARTER  The Road Of Love  2:54
  2            CLARENCE CARTER  Light My Fire  2:49
  3            WILSON PICKETT  Hey Jude  4:06
  4            WILSON PICKETT  Toe Hold  2:49
  5            WILSON PICKETT  My Own Style Of Loving  2:41
  6            WILSON PICKETT  Born to Be Wild  2:45
  7            LAURA LEE  It’s How You Make It Good  2:32
  8            LAURA LEE  It Ain’t What You Do (But How You Do It)  2:05
  9            SPENCER WIGGINS  I Never Loved A Woman (The Way I Love You)  3:01
10            ARTHUR CONLEY  Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da  3:00
11            ARTHUR CONLEY  Stuff You Gotta Watch  2:15
12            ARTHUR CONLEY  Speak Her Name  2:39
13            ARTHUR CONLEY  That Can't Be My Baby  2:22
14            WILLIE WALKER  A Lucky Loser  2:20
15            THE LOVELLES  I'm Coming Today  2:59
16            THE LOVELLES  Pretending Dear  2:38
17            ARETHA FRANKLIN  The Weight  2:53
18            ARETHA FRANKLIN  It Ain't Fair  3:22
19            SOUL SURVIVORS  Darkness  2:56
20            SOUL SURVIVORS  Tell Daddy  2:30
21            SOUL SURVIVORS  Got Down On Saturday  3:10
22            KING CURTIS  Hey Joe  2:56
23            KING CURTIS  Foot Pattin'  4:49
24            KING CURTIS  Games People Play  2:46
25            KING CURTIS  The Weight  2:47
26            THE SWEET INSPIRATIONS  Get A Little Order  2:06

Disc Three
 1            THE BARRY GOLDBERG BLUES BAND  Twice A Man  4:26
  2            DUANE ALLMAN  Goin' Down Slow  8:44
  3            DUANE ALLMAN  No Money Down  3:25
  4            DUANE ALLMAN  Happily Married Man  2:40
  5            OTIS RUSH  Me  2:55
  6            OTIS RUSH  Reap What You Sow  4:53
  7            OTIS RUSH  It Takes Time  3:25
  8            THE DUCK & THE BEAR  Going Up The Country  2:34
  9            THE DUCK & THE BEAR  Hand Jive  2:41
10            BOZ SCAGGS  Finding Her  4:10
11            BOZ SCAGGS  Look What I Got  4:13
12            BOZ SCAGGS  Waiting For A Train  2:41
13            BOZ SCAGGS  Loan Me A Dime  13:01
14            THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND  Don't Want You No More  2:26
15            THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND  It's Not My Cross To Bear  5:01
16            THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND  Black Hearted Woman  5:07
17            THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND  Trouble No More  3:45

Disc Four
 1            THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND  Every Hungry Woman  4:13
  2            THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND  Dreams  7:16
  3            THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND  Whipping Post  5:16
  4            RONNIE HAWKINS  One More Night  2:22
  5            RONNIE HAWKINS  Will The Circle Be Unbroken  2:50
  6            RONNIE HAWKINS  Matchbox  3:05
  7            RONNIE HAWKINS  Down In The Alley  5:08
  8            RONNIE HAWKINS  Who Do You Love  2:13
  9            LULU  Marley Purt Drive  3:21
10            LULU  Dirty Old Man  2:20
11            LULU  Mr. Bojangles  3:08
12            LULU  Sweep Around Your Own Back Door  2:40
13            JOHNNY JENKINS  I Walk On Gilded Splinters  5:16
14            JOHNNY JENKINS  Rollin’ Stone  4:56
15            JOHNNY JENKINS  Down Along The Cove  3:02
16            JOHNNY JENKINS  Voodoo In You  4:50
17            JOHN HAMMOND  Shake For Me  2:42
18            JOHN HAMMOND  Cryin’ For My Baby  2:39
19            JOHN HAMMOND  I’m Leavin’ You  3:20
20            JOHN HAMMOND  You’ll Be Mine  2:42
21            DORIS DUKE  Ghost Of Myself  3:06

Disc Five
 1    ERIC QUINCY TATE  Comin’ Down (demo version)  2:52
  2            THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND  Hoochie Coochie Man (live)  5:00
  3            THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND  Midnight Rider  2:58
  4            THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND  Dimples (live)  4:59
  5            THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND  I'm Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town (live) 9:21
  6            DELANEY & BONNIE & FRIENDS  Soul Shake  3:06
  7            LAURA NYRO  Beads Of Sweat  4:47
  8            THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND  Don’t Keep Me Wonderin’  3:28
  9            DELANEY & BONNIE & FRIENDS  Living On The Open Road  3:03


10            ELLA BROWN  A Woman Left Lonely  3:23
11            ELLA BROWN  Touch Me  2:59
12            BOBBY LANCE  More Than Enough Rain  5:51
13            DEREK & THE DOMINOS  I Am Yours  3:34
14            DEREK & THE DOMINOS  Why Does Love Got To Be So Sad?  4:41
15            DEREK & THE DOMINOS  Have You Ever Loved A Woman  6:52
16            DEREK & THE DOMINOS  Layla  7:03
17            ERIC CLAPTON & DUANE ALLMAN  Mean Old World  3:48

Disc Six
 1            SAM SAMUDIO  Me And Bobby McGee  3:31
  2            SAM SAMUDIO  Relativity  3:14
  3            SAM SAMUDIO  Goin' Upstairs  5:06
  4            RONNIE HAWKINS  Don't Tell Me Your Troubles  2:13
  5            RONNIE HAWKINS  Sick And Tired  2:45
  6            RONNIE HAWKINS  Odessa  3:19
  7            DELANEY & BONNIE & FRIENDS  Gift Of Love  2:09
  8            DELANEY & BONNIE & FRIENDS  Sing My Way Home  4:02
  9            THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND  Statesboro Blues (live)  4:17
10            THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND  In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed (live)  13:04
11            GRATEFUL DEAD  Sugar Magnolia (live)  7:20
12            THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND  One Way Out (live)  4:57
13            HERBIE MANN  Push Push  10:03
14            HERBIE MANN  Spirit In The Dark  7:59
15            HERBIE MANN  What’d I Say  4:57

Disc Seven
 1            DELANEY & BONNIE & FRIENDS  Come On In My Kitchen (live)  3:42
  2            DELANEY & BONNIE & FRIENDS  Going Down The Road Feeling Bad (live) 4:03
  3            DELANEY & BONNIE & FRIENDS  Poor Elijah / Tribute To Johnson (Medley) (live)  4:54
  4            THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND  You Don't Love Me / Soul Serenade (live) 19:25
  5            COWBOY  Please Be With Me  3:41
  6            THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND  Stand Back  3:24
  7            THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND  Blue Sky  5:09
  8            THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND  Blue Sky (live)  11:24
  9            THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND  Dreams (live)  17:56
10            THE ALLMAN BROTHERS BAND  Little Martha  2:07


  If you support live Blues acts, up and coming Blues talents and want to learn more about Blues news and Fathers of the Blues, -  ”LIKE” ---Bman’s Blues Report--- Facebook Page! I’m looking for great talent and trying to grow the audience for your favorite band!

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Carrie Newcomer's 'Kindred Spirits' collection coming on Rounder

 
CARRIE NEWCOMER’S KINDRED SPIRITS: A COLLECTION
COMING NOVEMBER 13 ON ROUNDER
 
Nineteen-song career retrospective contains two new songs. 

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — On November 13, 2012, Rounder Records will release a new compilation of Carrie Newcomer’s music entitled Kindred Spirits: A Collection. This collection of 19 songs draws from Newcomer’s catalog of 12 Rounder Records releases. It also includes two previously unreleased songs, two songs from her special hunger benefit project (Everything Is Everywhere) featuring Indian classical sarod masters Amjad Ali Khan and Ayaan Ali Khan, as well as two currently unavailable live recordings.
 
Carrie Newcomer’s music has always explored the intersection of the spiritual and the daily, the sacred and the ordinary. Over the course of her career she has become a prominent voice for progressive spirituality, social justice and interfaith dialogue.
 
Newcomer’s ability for sharp observation of the world lead the Dallas Morning News to rave, “She's the kind of artist whose music makes you stop, think and then say, ‘that is so true.’” She has been described as “a soaring songstress” by Billboard, a “prairie mystic” by the Boston Globe and Rolling Stone has declared that Newcomer “asks all the right questions.” Author Barbara Kingsolver wrote, “She’s a poet, storyteller, snake-charmer, good neighbor, friend and lover, minister of the wide-eyed gospel of hope and grace.”

The two new songs, “The Speed of Soul” and “A Long Christmas Dinner,” were recorded and produced by Newcomer, Robert Meitus and David Weber at Airtime Studios.  “The Speed of Soul” is a poignant exploration of a more deliberate relationship to time in an increasingly fast-paced culture.  “A Long Christmas Dinner” creates a portrait of life and family as part of an ongoing continuum.  In the songs “I Believe,” “Geodes” and “Holy as a Day Is Spent,” Newcomer quietly and beautifully describes the presence of something extraordinary in the midst of our ordinary days. She sings, “God walks around in muddy boots, sometimes rags and that’s the truth” and “Folding sheets like folding hands, to pray as only laundry can.”  “Before and After” explores the large and small experiences by which we mark our lives through a haunting duet with Mary Chapin Carpenter, resulting in a remarkable combination of two of acoustic music’s most rich and resonant females.  “The Gathering of Spirits,” featuring Alison Krauss, is a clear-voiced and crystalline celebration of life. “Betty’s Diner” is a hymn to the human condition and the presence of grace in something as small as a shared meal or cup of coffee — “Here we are all in one place, the wants and wounds of the human race . . . let her fill your cup with something kind, eggs and toast like bread and wine.”  Also included are the spiritual and tender “Sparrow” and the wry and raucous “Where You Been.”  The sensual “I Do Not Know Its Name” describes poetically and lyrically the sacred we experience, but which cannot be named. Reaching into her early work, “A Whole Lot of Hope,” “Bare to the Bone” and “My True Name” are snapshots of what has always been present in Newcomer’s songwriting and has only deepened and expanded with each recording.

On the topics of the new collection, spirituality and songwriting, Newcomer writes, “I am one of a growing number of people who don’t want to put the sacred in such a small container. I am disturbed that one very narrowly focused and extremely political brand of Christianity being called the ‘religious voice.’ There are wide communities of spiritual people who believe that walking this world in love and compassion is about feeding the hungry, providing for the poor or sick, caring for our elders, making sure that the table of love includes and welcomes everyone, educating our children and young people, honoring our beautiful and interconnected planet. These communities believe that women are equal spiritual beings, and that the highest and most honorable work is creating a less violent, more just and kind world. Isn’t a life of compassion bigger than a catch phrase or sound byte? Isn’t love wider and deeper than fear?” Speaking more to this point, she shares, “If a spiritual leader is teaching hate, it is not spiritual message, it is political message.”  

“My most effective and powerful voice will always be my truest voice. We all know when a song is candy-coating things or just going for shock value. But when a song places its finger on the open palm of something true, it shakes the world just a little bit. Why would I want to do anything else as a writer, or as a person? Part of my work as a writer is to put into language and music moments of wonder that have no words.”

The result is Kindred Spirits: A Collection, a resonant soundtrack for a world that is both sacred and ordinary, reflective and forward thinking.

The album’s artwork features the work of Hugh Syme, whose sense of magical realism captures Newcomer’s joyous idea about finding miracles in common places.


Kindred Spirits: A Collection Track List
 1. The Speed of Soul                                            
 2. I Believe (featuring Ayaan Ali Khan)          
 3. Breathe In Breathe Out (featuring Amjad Ali Khan)         
 4. There Is a Tree                                                     
 5. Geodes                                                               
 6. The Gathering of Spirits (featuring Alison Krauss)         
 7. Sparrow (Live)                                                      
 8. I Do Not Know Its Name                                             
 9. Before and After (featuring Mary Chapin Carpenter)               
10. Betty’s Diner - Remix (featuring Krista Detor)         
11. Where You Been
12. Angels Unaware
13. Two Toasts
14. Holy as a Day Is Spent
15. If Not Now
16. My True Name
17. A Whole Lot of Hope
18. A Long Christmas Dinner (featuring Krista Detor)
19. Bare to the Bone (Live)

Monday, May 21, 2012

Rounder Records: From The Vaults of Ric & Ron Records: Rare and Unreleased Recordings 1958 - 1962 - Review


I've been listening to the new Rounder Records Box Set, From the Vaults of Ric & Ron Records: Rare and Unreleased Recordings 1958 - 1962. This set includes demo recordings of Eddie Bo's Every Dog Has His Day, and Al Johnson's Carnival Time. The distribution of this package is limited to 1,500 copies worldwide. Some of my favorites on the recording are Eddie Bo's Nothing With Out You and a Demo of Every Dog Got His Day, an Audition Tape of Johnny Adams singing Walking the Floor, Paul Marvin playing Goofer and a particularly strong Demo of Barbara Lynn singing I Found My Good Thing. This is a must have for collectors of the New Orleans R&B.
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Friday, December 9, 2011

NEW ORLEANS SPIRIT CAPTURED ON THE MEET ME AT MARDI GRAS COMPILATION, DUE OUT JANUARY 10, 2012 ON ROUNDER RECORDS




NEW ORLEANS SPIRIT CAPTURED ON THE
MEET ME AT MARDI GRAS COMPILATION,
DUE OUT JANUARY 10, 2012 ON ROUNDER RECORDS
 
Album, just in time for February festivities, features Al “Carnival Time” Johnson, Professor Longhair, the Wild Magnolias, Larry Williams, Joe Liggins, Marcia Ball, Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys and more
 
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — There’s a chill in the air, and the sounds of the season are everywhere. Christmas, you ask? No, you’re in New Orleans, and it’s Carnival time — Meet Me at Mardi Gras. From every radio, bandstand, bar and coffee shop, the songs associated with Mardi Gras (especially perennial favorites such as Al Johnson’s “Carnival Time” and the ReBirth Brass Band anthem “Do Whatcha Wanna”) announce the month of parades and balls that will culminate with the nation’s biggest citywide party.
 
The 12-song set Meet Me at Mardi Gras, to be released on January 10, 2012, presents many of the best Mardi Gras songs on Rounder Records (a division of Concord Music Group), which, for decades, has been the pre-eminent label recording the music of New Orleans.
 
Also included are two classic songs from the Specialty catalog (Rounder’s sister label in the Concord Music Group). The album was compiled by Rounder’s Grammy-winning VP of A&R, Scott Billington.
 
Meet Me at Mardi Gras will serve as a suitable soundtrack for any Mardi Gras party. The Soul Rebels strike a funky note with “Say Na Hey,” a brand new song written by Leo Nocentelli, the guitarist for the crucial New Orleans funk band The Meters. In contrast, several of these songs reach back more than 50 years. Pianist Joe Liggins was not from New Orleans, but his “Goin’ Back to New Orleans” has become a standard, covered by both Dr. John and Deacon John. Larry Williams’s “Jockamo a.k.a. Iko-Iko” is a rocking version of the traditional Mardi Gras Indian chant.
 
Speaking of which, Bo Dollis of the Wild Magnolias (these tribes are African Americans who mask as outrageously plumed “Indians” on Mardi Gras and on Saint Joseph’s Day) takes the lead vocal on Professor Longhair’s timeless “Tipitina.” The Professor himself is featured on a 1960s version of his anthem “Go to the Mardi Gras” with its signature New Orleans parade beat.
 
While Cajun music originates in the French-speaking parishes south and west of New Orleans, you’ll often hear it in the Crescent City. “Mardi Gras Mambo,” originally recorded by Art Neville’s early band, The Hawkettes, is performed here by Cajun rocker Zachary Richard, while Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys play the minor-key “La Danse de Mardi Gras,” which you’ll hear at every Cajun dance at this time of year, for Cajuns have their own Mardi Gras.
 
For reasons not entirely known (but probably not difficult to decipher!), Jimmy and Jeannie Cheatham’s “Meet Me With Your Back Drawers On” has become a New Orleans standard, especially as performed by vocalist Chuck Carbo, a veteran of the vocal group The Spiders. Rounding out this set are pianist/singer Marcia Ball, with her song based on a Zulu character — the Big Shot with his bowler hat and big cigar — and the New Orleans Nightcrawlers, who offer a funky twist on the melody of “Li’l Liza Jane,” long a brass band staple.
 
In the week before Mardi Gras, the evening parades are family affairs, filled with the aroma of barbeque and the sound of laughter. Chair-topped stepladders are set up along the streets as perches for children to be better positioned to catch the beads thrown from each float. Spectators shout out to kids and cousins in the high-stepping high school marching bands. And you can bet that the music on this album will be emanating from someone’s front porch, beckoning all to the party.
 
Track list:
 
1. The Soul Rebels —  “Say Na Hey”
2. Joe Liggins & the Honeydrippers  — “Goin’ Back to New Orleans” 
3. Zachary Richard — “Mardi Gras Mambo”
4. New Orleans Nightcrawlers  — “Funky Liza”
5. Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys  — “La Danse de Mardi Gras”
6. Larry Williams — “Jockamo a.k.a. Iko-Iko”
7. Al Johnson — “Carnival Time”
8. Marcia Ball — “Big Shot” 
9. Professor Longhair  “Go to the Mardi Gras”
10. ReBirth Brass Band —  “Do Whatcha Wanna, Part 3”
11. Bo Dollis & the Wild Magnolias  — “Tipitina” –
12. Chuck Carbo  — “Meet Me With Your Black Drawers On”