Check out New Orleanian Alois Maxwell "Al" Hirt (1922-1999), playing his horn during a December 16, 1970 episode of Johnny Cash's musical variety show. The pace here is brisk: Hirt does 3 songs in 4min, 21sec. First, there's a quick "I Walk the Line" with Cash, followed by ... Read more

Banu Gibson & the New Orleans Hot Jazz Orchestra with a 1986 cover of Jellyroll Morton's "Milenberg Joys". The occasion was the Saint Louis National Ragtime and Classic Jazz Festival from the Goldenrod Showboat; KETC Channel 9 in Saint Louis shot the video.   Read more

Allen Toussaint performs "It's A New Orleans Thing", a cut from his 2013 album Songbook, on Sound Opinions, a public radio show from WBEZ in Chicago. At the end of an older video version of this song, he notes that it was "inspired by Professor Longhair", an influence that ... Read more

Here's a video version of Sarah Quintana's humorous paean to riz au lait (AKA rice pudding, a classic French comfort food) from her 2012 album World Has Changed. In this version she's accompanied by "found" precussion instruments: pots and pans in the kitchen of Huh! Restau... Read more

From the intimate confines of the Jam in the Van vehicle, Glen David Andrews rips and rocks through three tracks: "I Can Do Bad All By Myself", "Guilded Splinters", and the Satchmo standard "What a Wonderful World". "I Can Do Bad All By Myself"   "Guilded Splinters"   "Wh... Read more

For your weekend viewing pleasure, check out this four-song set by John Lee Hooker (1917-2001) and Ry Cooder at the "All Our Colors" benefit, Shoreline Ampitheater, Mountain View CA, 10/10/1992 The set list: Intro  - Lonely Man 05:35 - It Serves Me Right To Suffer 13:33 -... Read more

In the summer of 1989, Van Morrison was travelling in Greece with a film crew, making the documentary One Irish Rover. One sunny day, he was joined in Athens by Bob Dylan, who'd just ended a European tour. They brought their acoustic guitars to the place in Athens where the... Read more

The Original Pinettes Brass Band won the 2013 Red Bull Street Kings competition. Part of the prize: studio time and tutoring from people like Mannie Fresh and Trombone Shorty, both of whom appear in this version of "Ain't No City" cut in the Red Bull Studio.     Read more

Born in the Mississippi Delta near Clarksdale, blues legend Eddie James "Son" House (1902-1988) spent a good deal of his childhood in Louisiana, eventually in Algiers/New Orleans, but first near Tallulah in Madison Parish. His brief introduction to "Preaching the Blues" in ... Read more

If you didn't get enough Zydeco at the last weekend's Lousiana Cajun & Zyedo festival in Armstrong Park, check out this video. Published last week by Storyville Records, it's a 1984 live recording at the Maple Leaf:"The Louisiana Two Step" by Rockin' Dopsie (1932 - 1993) an... Read more