"Sundays"

Here's a memorable video recorded and posted as part of a "Music in the Streets of New Orleans" series I was working on that got zapped by the google+ blue meanies:

A Second Line jazz funeral dancer somberly leads an imaginary procession march in the foreground as, "Just a Closer Walk With Thee" is sung at a St. Louis Cathedral Elementary School fund-raising in the French Quarter. The local singer & trumpet player dedicated his last song "to the memory of Whitney" Houston who had died from an accidental drowning the Saturday night-before.

My "Music on Frenchmen Street" series was also exterminated by G+ Daleks but I'll be resurrecting it here best I can, beginning with things like this cool version of "House of the Rising Sun" I recorded at an iconic local music club on a late-Sunday night in New Orleans, enjoy (: 

Andre' Bouvier & The Royal Bohemians, with George Deane, Sr. (electric bass), Suzi Leger (percussion/washboard), Matt DeOrazio (guitar), James Clark (drums), and Andre' Bouvier (vocals/guitar) @ the (old) Apple Barrel Music Club (609 Frenchmen).

Finally (but not really), here's one post from my "Artists of the French Quarter" series which I recorded one sultry Sunday night:

Conan is a Frenchmen Street sidewalk artist you can usually find working late nights next to Checkpoint Charlie Music Club across from Engine 9 Fire Station near the foot of Esplanade Avenue. In fact, the piece he's working on in this video was requested by one of the firemen at Engine No. 9, who were among the very first first-responders to begin rescue work the morning after Hurricane Katrina. This artist most often works with oil paints using as his canvas old slate-roof tiles that are discarded during the post-Katrina rebuilding presently going on to this day. New Orleans has a long history of "sidewalk artists" which I have written about and will re-post on my personal online 'netpaper @ www.vieuxcarretimes.com

Sundays in New Orleans are great for fun, serious self-reflection, and -- of course -- love (: 

To end the day here's a popular Sunday love story-in-a-song, sung by my dear friend Irene Sage, whose trauma-surgeon husband plays a mean back-up rhythm guitar with other superstar-members of Irene's St. Bernard Parish-based band. 

"A Sunday Kind of Love" ~New Orleans' Irene Sage, with "Dr. Scott" Conklin (guitar, left); Sam Price (bass), Marc Hewitt (guitar); Mike Burkart (keyboard); Doug Belote (drums).  This song was composed by Barbara Belle, Anita Leonard, Stan Rhodes, and Louis Prima, and was published in 1946. Here's Miss Irene's Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/irene.sage.5

In this video, friends gather in memory of Coco Robicheaux and Kenny Holladay, two locally-loved guitarist-singers who recently had passed away from health problems, as did another locals' friend Mick "Slewfoot" McLaughlin.

Most likely you "have to be there" to understand fully how the passing of a musician affects many if not most local residents of the Vieux Carré and surrounding neighborhoods, especially those of us who gain something spiritual-like & life-affirming from the music vibrations that surround us.

Being surrounded by music forms a connection to one another like family, even if we're away on business on a far-away island as I so happen to be today.... So I listen to this recording I made of my friend Irene Sage singing "A Sunday Kind of Love" at Checkpoint's with her husband, physician "Dr. Scott" Conklin in the background obediently playing lead guitar (:

If you find time you can search-around my YouTube channel (Please Subscribe) for the video I shot of Irene and Scotty writing a song together; it's very cool and I'll post it soon, but it's time to go out and enjoy my Sunday, I hope you do too!(:

~thomas balzac