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COLORADO, MY ROCKY MOUNTAIN HOME IN THE 198O's
Red Rocks Theater
(This out door theater is famous for one of the Beatles first performances in the US!)
I played here in the 1980's with the "Barnstormers"!
I remember how awesome it was to look up at all the billions of stars in the night sky!
The theater and seats are carved out of the Red Rocks.
The theater is acoustically sound from stage to the highest seats.
It holds about 10,000 people and on that day we were packed.
Thank you Colorado for so many wonderful memories.
It truly was a Rocky Mountain High!
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STAGGERLEE
This is a rare March 1987 playbill from the Original Off-Broadway production of the ALLEN TOUSSAINT and VERNEL BAGNERIS Rhythm and Blues musical "STAGGERLEE" at the Second Avenue Theatre in New York City. (The production opened March 18th, 1987 and ran for 118 performances.) ..... The musical starred RUTH BROWN and ADAM WADE and the cast included MARVA HICKS, JUANITA BROOKS, REGINALD VELJOHNSON, CAROL SUTTON, ALFRED BRUCE BRADLEY, ANGELES ECHOLS, (Christina aka: CHRISTIE GAUDET), BERNARD J. MARSH, KEVIN RAMSEY and LEON WILLIAMS ..... CREDITS: Music and Lyrics by ALLEN TOUSSAINT; Book and additional Lyrics by VERNEL BAGNERIS; Sets designed by AKIRA YOSHIMURA; Costumes designed by JOANN CLEVENGER; Choreographed by PEPSI BETHEL; Directed by VERNEL BAGNERIS; Produced by JOHN H. WILLIAMS, RUTH MIESZKUC, THE PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT COMPANY and THE ENCORE A PARTNERSHIP
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NEW ORLEANS, MY MUSICAL HOME AND BIRTH PLACE!
10 Crucial Things New Orleans Had First
The first-ever documented performance of opera in the United States of America took place in New Orleans in 1796. George Washington was still president, though fortunately, he wasn’t the last to take in a show there. The fiery passion of those original performances now come courtesy of the renowned New Orleans Opera Association, founded in 1943. Opera also finds its way to visitors right where they stay, with monthly Opera on Tap performances at the Four Points Sheraton Hotel right in the French Quarter. You might even catch local trio Bon Operatit! at one of their many local free appearances.
Source: gifsoup.com
2. POKER
It’s been said that poker was originally incarnated by sailors in port in New Orleans in the 1820s, betting one another on who had a hand of higher value. Though the game has changed in some ways, the original spirit of the sailors has survived on NOLA’s steam-powered gambling riverboats—vessels you can still cruise around the city on today—in all their authentic 19th-century glory (minus the gambling part); or hit Harrah’s, featuring 20 tables offering Texas Hold’em, Omaha and 7-Card Stud. The World Series of Poker even holds circuit events in town.
Image by Hulton Archive/Getty Images
3. COCKTAILS
Speaking of spirits, records of America’s very first mixed drink date back to 1800s New Orleans, where bartenders in the French Quarter devised a recipe for Sazerac over time and tradition—trading in whiskey for cognac at times, and switching between absinthe and bitters based on the laws at hand. The city is also the home of the Gin Fizz, which was created just before the turn of the 20th century. Sazerac has its very own home in New Orleans, too—a dedicated bar in the Roosevelt Hotel.
Source: ctj71081 / via: flickr.com
4. “DIXIELAND”
http://www.buzzfeed.com/followyournola/crucial-things-new-orleans-had-first?sub=2191509_1134148
This euphemism so closely associated with Americana and the expanse of the south originated in the French-speaking regions of Louisiana, where Dix was a form of currency. The Old U.S. Mint in the French Quarter has Dixie Notes and other rarely minted forms of money in addition to a new rotating photo and art gallery. This same era of special currency also spawned a signature style of dixieland jazz that came back to the New Orleans area via Chicago, performed regularly aboard Steamboat Natchez or at the classic Maison Bourbon Jazz Club.
Source: youtube.com
5. JAZZ
New Orleans is known as the birthplace of jazz, but jazz came from an even freakier place—the practice of voodoo. The freedom to openly practice voodoo combined with the highly rhythmic sounds of African percussion and European horns led to the birth of jazz. Voodoo is commonly attributed to the spiritual and improvisational aspects of the movement. To this day, the most famous voodoo queen who ever lived was Marie Laveau—a free woman in New Orleans in born in 1801. Her legacy is chronicled in great detail at The New Orleans Historical Voodoo Museum, which opened in 1972.
Source: stephendavisillustration.tumblr.com
6. FINE DINING
Antoine’s is Louisiana’s oldest continuously operating restaurant, having opened its doors in 1840. Spanning 14 different ornate dining rooms in one building, this mecca of French-Creole cuisine offers flavorful recipes unique to nowhere else in the world.
Source: Numinosity / via: garyjwood
Rex Room
Source: antoines.com
7. PHARMACISTS
New Orleans was the first place that validated the practice of prescription, and the painkillers were often custom blends of alcohol. America’s first officially licensed pharmacist was New Orleans-born Louis J. Dufilho, Jr., and his apothecary on 514 Chartes in the French Quarter (the country’s first legitimate one), is now the site of the New Orleans Pharmacy Museum, which showcases vintage wares and boasts a killer courtyard.
Image by Three Lions/Getty Images
8. FINE HOUSES OF WORSHIP
Erected in 1727, then resurrected in 1794 after a tragic fire in 1788, the St. Louis Cathedral overlooking Jackson Square is still credited as the oldest continuously used cathedral in North America. Similar holy landmarks are also frequented by tourists for their rich history and inspired architecture, like St. Patricks, and the Old Ursuline Convent, which survived the same tragic fire in 1788 that destroyed the original St. Louis Cathedral and most of the French Quarter.
Image by Rob Carr / Getty Images
9. MOVIE THEATERS
The roots of the commercial movie theater came about in New Orleans in 1896 on Canal Street, where films were shown on a Vitascope—a device whose technology was financed and inspired by the engineering of Thomas Edison. Vitascope Theater consisted of watching motion pictures on folding chairs, 400 people at a time, 10 cents a show. It was open for two months before a permanent space emerged in Buffalo, New York later that year. Today, to honor the space, there’s a bar in New Orleans’ Business District called Vitascope Hall.
Source: en.wikipedia.org
Source: youtube.com
10. COMPETITIVE FISHING
Contrary to popular belief, fishing competitions didn’t emerge solely from their popularity on ESPN2. The first one in the United States was started in 1928—The Grand Isle Tarpon Rodeo—and still takes place today in the famed fishing community about two and a half hours south of New Orleans. Believe us, experiencing New Orleans and the shores of coastal Louisiana yourself is a whole lot more fun than from your couch.
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Swamp Song
Last summer, about this time of the year, I took a trip back home to my Louisiana swampland stomping grounds. Every time I go, I revisit the past and I am haunted by the memories of the love ones I have lost and I long for their company.
Somehow, in this magical place, I seem to always recapture the memory of my childhood, when life was deliriously happy, full of love, safe, abundant and full of adventure. My childhood was spent with alligators, black bears, armadillos, snakes, turtles, spiders, mosquitoes, squirrels, cranes, crawfish, catfish, frogs, mosquito hogs and crickets who sang their night song in the breeze of the “Southern Nights”… ( … A hit song was written by my mentor Allen Toussaint. It is worth a listen).
My cabin in the swamp is a home where there is no cell phone reception and no internet connection. There is no Google global tracking system from above to locate you on the internet or “Big Brother” watching. Where I live the forest is so dense that you cannot see my cabin in the woods from a plane in the sky. Where I live there is only one road in and one road out, which was built in the 50s and prior to that you could only get there by water in a pirogue boat. If you get lost in my kingdom, you will never know how to get back to civilization without my help. :)
It is a mysterious magical place filled with ferries, gnomes and fire flies that light up the night sky! “This chosen place with its pristine grace is quite a beautiful resting place.”
How Do You Write a Song?
As I was sitting in a boat in the middle of the swamp that summer, picking up catfish lines with a couple of my fisherman friends from the bayou, one of them asked me, how do you write your music? Does it come to you all at once? How does it work?
I then began to explain it the best way that I could, given the environment. I said listen! As we were sitting there in the quite vastness of mother earth, I heard a bull frog sing at its lowest call. I said, for instance, hear that bull frog? That’s the base line. Do you hear the sound of that chain saw in the distance, that’s the guitar? Do you hear the air bubbles from the water that the fish are burping? That’s the rhythm of the drums! Do you hear the leaves rustling thru the trees? That’s the keyboard sound. Do you hear that Pelican Bird and the song it sings? That the melody line.
At that moment as we were all sitting there, the entire swamp became a symphony! We sat there in the boat motionless, in awe, saying not a word, just listening to the magical music of the swamp!
As we fired up the motor to head back to camp, he said, “I will never hear the swamp the same way again!” …..”It is all there for us if we just listen!”
Gift of Song
There is no wonder where I inherit my gift of song. Both my parents possessed it! My father, who wrote songs on his guitar to our dog (“Hans Loves Lizards”), taught me at a young age how wonderful it was to touch even the dog with a song, as Hans stood there wagging his tail in happy delight! My mother, played piano for us on Saturday afternoons filling our home with the classics. She also had the gift of song; Below is a poem my dear mother wrote. Both Mom and Dad live on through me and the ‘gift of song’ they have given me!
Swamp Song
This chosen place with its pristine grace
is my beautiful resting place
Here, I am happy
there is no pain
as I run with the wind
and laugh with the rain
I rise with the sun
and float until noon
I skip thru the leaves
and dance until noon
No big city is my home
here on this land
I’ll be free to roam.
And when I am gone,
just scatter my ashes
say a heartfelt Hail Mary
then leave me to play
in this land of the fairies.
C. Gaudet © 1995
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Yes, I am a Cajun. Some call me a “Cajun Queen from New Orleans!” Many people ask me “What is a Cajun”?
Growing up, I spent many summers in the bayous and swamps of Louisiana in the Atchafalaya River Basin. It is considered to be the Heartland of the Bayou Cajuns. My Cajun French family had settled there from Normandy France via Acadia, Canada and intertwined with the local Native American Choctaw Indians. Here's a picture of the Gaudet home, which is now a museum in Cajun County!
Saturday’s and Sunday’s were spent at the Fais-do-do dance parties and the Couchon de liat pig roastings. That happy foot stomping Cajun music and the soulful mix of funky Mardi Gras Indian chants laid the seeds for the creation of the music yet to come!
I found this list of what it means to be a Cajun by Bob Hamm and wanted to share it since all of it is true!
Between the red hills of North Louisiana and the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico, lives the Cajun. Among the marshes and the bayous, the tall oaks and whispering moss he carries on the traditions of his hardy Nova Scotian ancestors, les Acadiens, whose flight from persecution brought them to the lush South Louisiana soil over two centuries ago.
In other parts of the world, little girls are made of sugar & spice and everything nice, while little boys are made of snips and snails and puppy dog tails.
Little Cajun children – or, Acadian, if you will – are made of gumbo, boudin and sauce piquant… crawfish stew and Orielles de Couchon..
A Cajun child is given bayous to fish in, marshes to trap in, room to grow in and churches to worship in.
A Cajun likes fiddles and accordions in his music, plenty of pepper in his court bouillon, shrimp in his nets, speed in his horses, neighborliness in his neighbors and love in his house.
A Cajun dislikes: people who don’t laugh enough, fish enough, or enjoy enough of all the good things God has given to the Cajun Country.
He doesn’t like to be hurried when he’s resting or distracted when he’s working. He doesn’t like to see people unhappy and he’ll do all he can or give all he has to bring a smile to a face stricken with sadness.
em>A Cajun likes to dance and laugh and sing when his week of hard work has ended. And just as Saturday night at the fais-do-do replenishes his store of energy and his personal balance so he can meet the next weeks’s chores with vigor…. Sunday at Church refreshes his spiritual and moral values and keeps strong his always – sustaining faith.
A link with a proud past, a Cajun is a man of tolerance who will let the world go its way if the world will let him go his. He is a man of great friendliness who will give you the crawfish off his table, the Sac-au-Lait off his hook or the shirt off his back.
But if you cross a Cajun, he’ll give you the back of his hand or the toe of his boot. If he likes you he’ll give you his whole wide, wonderful world. If he doesn’t he’ll give you a wide berth.
A Cajun is a complex person, with as many ingredients in his makeup as there are in the gumbo Mama makes for special company.
He has tolerance for those who earn it…. Charity for those who need it… a smile for those who will return it… and love for all who will share it.
BUT… a Cajun can be as stubborn as a mule and as ornery as an alligator. If he sets his head on something, he’ll fight a circle saw before he’ll yield to your opinions.
You’d as well argue with a fence post as try to change the mind of a Cajun.
And, as fun-loving as he is, a Cajun can work as long and hard as any man. He carved out “Acadiana” by hand, from the swamps and marshes and uncultivated prairies.
But when the work is done and the argument ended, a Cajun can sweep you right into a wonderful world of joie de vivre with an accordion chorus of “Jolie Blonde,” and a handful of happy little words… five little words to be exact:
“Laissez les bons temps rouller!”
Let the good times roll!
©: Bob Hamm 1972