Louisiana Gets Lost in the Blues Special

Springtime is blues time in Louisiana. The jazz festival took off in New Orleans last weekend. Natchitoches, the little New Orleans, has its own festivities going on throughout April and May. It’s the time of year to get lost in the blues.

Prior to the advent of the blues, black music was group singing from fields and churches and other places where they gathered to pray, talk and work. When blues came along, the soloist emerged. Blues in New Orleans became a vehicle for musical expression that came out of plantation and work songs but with a different patter and pattern. From the first recording of the blues in 1895, George W. Johnson's "Laughing Song," blues songs moved and merged, blending beats of rock, rockabilly, soul and other sounds to form a mixed bag of music in the deep South. No more is that seen than at this time of year throughout Louisiana. Muddy Waters, the blues king of Louisiana and the South, brought the blues around the world. Out of the swamplands his music flourished. Elvis Presley was the star of the Louisiana Hayride in Shreveport, taking the sounds of the old black musicians and making them his with a twist. The music of Natchitoches, as shown this week in clubs around town, celebrating spring and bringing crowds around out of their winter woes, concentrates on that juxtaposition of blues and country that infects the north and north central parts of the State of Louisiana. It isn’t uncommon to see some country musicians with black blues folk stirred together in a multiracial pot of sound and song, for toes to tap and people of different ages, backgrounds and racial groups to enjoy. No where does this better take place than the venue of Pioneer Pub and Mama’s and Papa’s on Front Street in Natchitoches. Louisiana indeed gets lost in the blues, and right now it needs to as recession has finally set in with the closing of Varsity Dodge, a long-time employer of Natchitoches and Pilgrim’s Pride, a major employer in the area. So Natchitoches, like New Orleans, vies for tourist trade. Blues brings the folks in on the weekends, especially in spring, before the advent of summer months, sometimes too hot and sticky for outside events. Still just like Thursday night, blues took center stage to keep folks focused away from news of the H1N1 flu virus, the upcoming hurricane season worries, and the economic woes. Once more, with feeling, Louisiana got lost in the blues.