A radio documentary about New Orleans and South Louisiana Blues

With the Olympics on everyone’s mind right now, we re-listened to our interview with Louisiana blues pianist and vocalist Carol Fran—particularly the story of how she and her husband, guitarist Clarence Hollimon, came to perform at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta. We’ve edited this two-minute audio clip in which Fran recalls that special period [...]

Benny Spellman, the New Orleans R&B singer whose lent his bass vocals to Ernie K-Doe’s famous song “Mother-in-Law,” died last Friday at the age of 79. Spellman was probably best known for the song “Lipstick Traces” (click on the video above). We’ve heard songwriter and arranger Allen Toussaint tell this story about the origins of [...]

New Orleans lost one of its best-known street musicians with the death this month of 57-year-old Mickey “Slewfoot” McLaughlin. It was a 2008 jam session involving Slewfoot (which you can read about here) that originally inspired our Still Singing the Blues project; his song Raining in New Orleans remains one of our Crescent City touchstones. [...]

Blues fans in Central Illinois will have  chance to listen to Crescent City Blues, the second hour of our series this coming Saturday night, March 26.  At 8 p.m., WUIS 91.9 FM in Springfield, and WIPA 89.3 FM in Pittsfield will feature the documentary on their program “Saturday Beat.” WUIS says that show features an [...]