New Orleans / Louisiana City Blues
New Orleans / Louisiana City Blues is blues filtered through second-line rhythm, piano professors, brass bands, Creole culture, early jazz, carnival tradition, and R&B studio craft. It swings with a sideways street pulse: rumba bass, parade drums, rolling triplets, horn riffs, gospel call-and-response, and vocals that can sound mournful, mischievous, or gloriously unbothered.
History
The family developed from New Orleans’s long mix of African American, Creole, Caribbean, French, Spanish, sacred, brass-band, ragtime, jazz, and blues traditions, then exploded commercially through 1940s–1960s labels and studios such as Cosimo Matassa’s J&M and Cosimo Recording Studio, Specialty, Imperial, Ace, Minit, and Instant. Professor Longhair, Fats Domino, Guitar Slim, Smiley Lewis, Lloyd Price, Earl King, Irma Thomas, Dr. John, Allen Toussaint, The Meters, and the city’s brass bands created a blues language inseparable from New Orleans rhythm. The family shaped rock and roll, funk, soul, swamp pop, brass-band revival, Mardi Gras repertory, and modern roots music.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- John Broven, Rhythm and Blues in New Orleans
- Jeff Hannusch, I Hear You Knockin'
- Ned Sublette, The World That Made New Orleans
- AllMusic