For fans of Louisiana music, whether it be jazz, country, americana, swing, zydeco, cajun, or blues, and living in Southern California, we are blessed with great festivals and music clubs, that are constantly booking touring Louisiana based bands. Thus, when "Where's Andrew" from National Geographic Traveler posted on his twitter account in November 2011 that he had just witnessed the best music in the New Orleans French Quarter, I was very curious and intrigued. This was
Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Revue fronted by Vanessa Niemann playing old-time countrified swing. I found the band's website and YouTube videos, and saw that they had taken up a music residency in Los Angeles, splitting their time in New Orleans, and noted that in December 2011, they were doing some very late night performances at Taix in Echo Park. I was planning on seeing one of those performances, but I was just too tired to make the late night trek to Echo Park, but then I got lucky, and Gal Holiday and the Honky Tonk Revue got booked for Harvelle's in Long Beach. Playing Harville's under the Congregation Ale House was like being booked into a roaring 20's speak-easy.
I was mesmerized hearing and seeing Gal Holiday perform country swing at Harvelle's, and at times, it was like hearing Patsy Cline channeling Wanda Jackson's rockabilly, and below are the pictures from that night. Her small space dance moves on stage became hyptnotic, and later learned, they were a trademark of her performances.
Ironically, the last wedding anniversary I celebrated with my late wife Karen was at a Los Angeles Central Library ALOUD program on June 6, 2011 that featured Eric Overmyer, co-producer of HBO's Treme, that celebrates New Orleans culture post-Katrina, with the Treme neighborhood being a symbol of the rebirth of New Orleans, available as a podcast here. Karen and I had visited Louisiana and New Orleans, eleven times all post Katrina, and we ourselves had been witnessing the rebirth of New Orleans. We first heard about Treme at the very beginning of filming in New Orleans, when David Mills, the other creative partner from HBOs The Wire unexpectly passed away. We were having a fabulous Friday lunch at Uptown's Patois in early 2010 discussing HBO's filming of Treme with our server and at an adjacent table, Robert D. Peyton, the restaurant critic of New Orleans Magazine. The server told us that the production team from Treme had very recently eaten at this nationally recognized New Orleans restaurant and she was stunned to learn of his sudden passing.