Tu(n)esday

Come with me and follow a little trail of breadcrumbs through the forest of my mind, children...

Last summer, I watched most of the Newport Folk Festival streaming online from NPR's website, primarily because I wanted to see Beck, Old Crow Medicine Show, JD McPherson, Andrew Bird, The Felice Brothers, Justin Townes Earl, and actually a whole bunch of other people, too. It was an amazing year for the festival that I was sad to have missed in person.

But I did happen to also catch the set by Shovels and Rope, and had my socks knocked completely off by their great songs and incredible stage presence. I did not realize that I had totally missed out on the set by Hurray for the Riff Raff from the same concert. However, the couple from S&R had covered a HFTRR song that day and are friends of theirs and have mentioned them fairly often since, so I eventually found my way over to them, too. And from THERE, I've now landed on The Deslondes, who are friends of and record with the folks from Hurray for the Riff Raff (Remember this video for "St. Roch Blues" that I already posted? It has members of both bands in it).

Are you keeping up with me here? Do you need to sit down and rest for a minute? Push on, push on, friends, we're getting the part where you can sit and watch some videos soon, very soon. You're doing great.

So then I recently read this article in American Songwriter about the growing country music scene in New Orleans, home of HFTRR and The Deslondes, who feature heavily in the article, so I had to get over here today and get some videos of theirs up so you can love on them, too.

SIDENOTE: I gotta admit that calling this music "country" makes me a little twitchy. They describe themselves as "country-soul, swamp-boogie." I like that much better! I suppose it IS country music, technically. Like the way tomatoes are "fruit." I just happen to have PTSD linked to the word "country" and I'm probably in denial. (Shut up.)

Here, have look and listen and make up your own mind: