Mardi Gras music makers
Familiar songs help put revelers in the mood for festive Carnival season
From New Orleans to New Roads, Mardi Gras parades roll through Louisiana cities and towns every year at Carnival time. Float riders throw mass quantities of beads and trinkets to excited parade-goers, festive balls are staged, tons of sugar-slathered king cakes are consumed.
But it wouldn’t be Carnival time without music. Like Christmas, that other musical holiday, Mardi Gras has inspired, and continues to inspire, its own soundtrack.
The rhythmic, heart pounding, anticipatory music of Mardi Gras puts revelers in the spirit. Singer-pianist Professor Longhair’s “Go To The Mardi Gras,” for instance, as well as his other seasonal favorite, “Big Chief, Part 1,” transport listeners to Mardi Gras via evocative drums, horns and Mardi Gras day-set lyrics.
Carnival season is famously celebrated, too, in Al Johnson’s rousing “Carnival Time.” Many judge Johnson’s 1960 recording to be the No. 1 Mardi Gras song. Following “Carnival Time” in popularity are such old favorites as “Mardi Gras Mambo,” first recorded by the Hawkettes in 1954. There’s also the Dixie Cups’ 1965 hit, “Iko Iko,” first released as “Jock-A-Mo” during the 1954 Carnival season by James “Sugarboy” Crawford and his Cane Cutters. Crawford based “Jock-A-Mo” upon traditional Mardi Gras Indian chants.
Other Carnival classics include “If Ever I Cease To Love.” Played at the first Rex parade in 1872, it became the Rex theme song.
Personal favorites
Chris Thomas King, Baton Rouge’s Grammy-winning, world-touring blues artist, names Professor Longhair’s “Big Chief, Part 1” as his top Mardi Gras pick.
“Whether you’re in Ireland, Chicago, New Orleans, Baton Rouge or Thailand,” King said. “ ‘Big Chief’ never fails to get the party started. That rhythm in ‘Big Chief,’ it’s the definitive New Orleans groove.”
When Kenny Neal, another Baton Rouge blues artist, was a trumpet-playing youngster, he performed with his little brothers and their dad, Raful Neal, on a float during Mardi Gras parades in New Roads. The Mardi Gras music the family played included “Second Line, Part 1,” an instrumental originally released in 1963 by Bill Sinigal and the Second Liners. Whenever Neal hears “Second Line” now, he feels the spirit of Louisiana.
Neal performs “Second Line” during Carnival season. If people request New Orleans music while he’s on tour other times of the year, he plays “Second Line” in a medley with “When The Saints Go Marching In.”
Ingrained in the Neal family musicians as “Second Line” is, the music comes to them instinctively. “We really never sat down and figured it out,” Neal said. “We count it off and whatever happens, happens. It’s a magical kind of thing.”
Nick Spitzer, professor of anthropology and American studies at Tulane University and host of the nationally syndicated New Orleans-based radio show, American Routes, loves such classics as the Wild Magnolias’ “New Suit,” Crawford’s “Jock-A-Mo,” Johnson’s “Carnival Time” and Danny Barker and Baby Dodds’ “Corinne Died On The Battlefield.”
But Spitzer’s especially fond of jazz saxophonist and Mardi Gras Indian chief Donald Harrison’s comparatively obscure Indian Blues CD and an Ardoin Family performance of “Chant de Mardi Gras,” featured on the Rounder Records collection, Zodico: Louisiana Creole Music.
American Routes’ 2012 Mardi Gras show, Dance Your Blues Away on Mardi Gras Day, contains a segment about the Spanish Town Mardi Gras parade in Baton Rouge and recordings by Baton Rouge recording artists John Fred, Slim Harpo and Rockin’ Tabby Thomas.
“Mardi Gras Mambo” tops local blues artist Larry Garner’s Mardi Gras music list. A band of high school students called the Hawkettes recorded the most famous version in 1954. The Hawkettes included singer-keyboardist Art Neville, later a member of the Meters and the Neville Brothers.
“Every time I hear ‘Mardi Gras Mambo’ it brings me back to my childhood,” Garner said. “When I was younger, we used to skip school and catch the bus to New Orleans for the festivities.”
Local reggae and funk musician Henry Turner also puts “Mardi Gras Mambo” on top. “It gives you an auditory history about cool spots in New Orleans,” he said.
“On LaSalle and Rampart street, in Gert Town where the cats all meet,” Neville sings in “Mardi Gras Mambo,” “the combo’s there with a mambo beat.”
Turner and his band, Flavor, are performing again this year on Mardi Gras day in New Orleans at K-Doe Fest, 1520 N. Claiborne Ave.
Attorney Taylor Caffery, a New Orleans native who moonlights from 9 p.m. to midnight Saturday nights at WRKF-FM as the host of the eclectic but folk-oriented Hootenanny Power, is partial to New Orleans singer-songwriter Gina Forsyth’s “What I Did At The Mardi Gras.”
“It’s a cute, funny little Mardi Gras song about the experience at the Mardi Gras,” he said.
As for classics, Caffery has vivid memories from the ’60s of Professor Longhair’s “Go To The Mardi Gras” being broadcast by New Orleans pop stations WNOE and WTIX. “Nobody knew anything about Professor Longhair, but he had this 45 rpm record that the radio stations played every Mardi Gras season,” Caffery said. “You didn’t know what this guy looked like because he didn’t have a public persona. Professor Longhair. You’d picture a maestro with a symphony orchestra. It was always exciting to hear ‘Go To The Mardi Gras’ on the radio.”
“Go To The Mardi Gras” is a favorite, too, of Zia Tammami, the Baton Rouge radio personally who spins jazz, blues, rock and more every Sunday on both KLSU-FM and WBRH-FM. So is the Wild Magnolias’ Indian song, “New Suit.”
“When I hear those two songs, I picture people standing out in the street and waiting for the Carnival parade,” he said. “I’m thinking, ‘OK. I’m on Canal Street,’ or, ‘I’m Uptown.’ ”
New Mardi Gras music
New Orleans funk band Galactic will release its first Mardi Gras album, Carnivale Electricos, Mardi Gras day, Feb. 21. The album makes the musical and cultural connection between Mardi Gras in New Orleans and Carnivale in Brazil. Another of Galactic’s guest-filled albums, Carnivale Electricos’ co-stars include Cyril and Ivan Neville, rappers Mystikal and Mannie Fresh, Al “Carnival Time” Johnson and New Orleans’ Brazilian music group, Casa Samba.
There’s another new Mardi Gras song on Unlock Your Mind, the new album from New Orleans brass band the Soul Rebels. “Say Na Hey,” composed by and featuring Meters guitarist Leo Nocentelli, contains the chant, call-and-response and funk so often identified with the city’s music.
“Say Na Hey” also appears on Meet Me At Mardi Gras, a new Mardi Gras collection from Rounder Records. The 12-track disc includes Johnson’s “Carnival Time,” Longhair’s “Go To The Mardi Gras,” non-New Orleanian Joe Liggins’ “Goin’ Back To New Orleans,” classic New Orleans rock ’n’ roller Larry Williams’ long-unreleased version of “Jockamo” and Acadiana singer-songwriter Zachary Richard’s rendition of “Mardi Gras Mambo.”
“We wanted to put something out that was more affordable than what we’ve done before,” compilation producer Scott Billington said of Rounder’s third Mardi Gras collection. “We also have this fantastic new Mardi Gras track by the Soul Rebels.”
Billington, the producer of albums by dozens of New Orleans and Louisiana artists, cites Professor Longhair’s “Go To The Mardi Gras” as his ultimate Carnival song.
“It’s got Professor Longhair’s syncopated piano and that unique New Orleans street-parade beat,” he said. “It’s got those great riffing New Orleans horns. And you hear the Caribbean in there as much as New Orleans. It’s got everything you could want in a Carnival record.”
Mardi Gras on the radio
Baton Rouge radio stations 90.3 WBRH-FM and 1260 KBRH-AM will simulcast continuous Mardi Gras music 6 a.m.-noon Saturday, Feb. 18. The stations’ regularly scheduled programs include Mardi Gras music through the remainder of the day.
Heard locally at 89.3 WRKF-FM, American Routes, with host Nick Spitzer, will air a Mardi Gras special, Dance Your Blues Away On Mardi Gras Day, 7 p.m.-9 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 18.