DJ Jubilee: The Bounce Music Pioneer Who Put Twerk on Tape
The Man Who Made a City TwerkBorn Jerome Temple and raised in the St. Thomas Housing Projects, DJ Jubilee is one of the founding fathers of New Orleans bounce music — the high-energy, call-and-resp...
King Oliver: The Jazz Cornetist Who Mentored Louis Armstrong
The King Before ArmstrongBefore Louis Armstrong became the most famous jazz musician in the world, he had a teacher. That teacher was Joe "King" Oliver, a cornet player and bandleader whose influen...
Fats Domino: The Quiet King of Rock and Roll from the Lower Ninth Ward
The Quiet King of Rock and RollAntoine Domino Jr. did not look like a rock and roll revolutionary. He was short, round, soft-spoken, and unfailingly polite — the opposite of the wild men who define...
Frankie Ford: Sea Cruise and the Rock and Roll Life
Sea Cruise and the Rock and Roll LifeFrankie Ford had one massive hit, and it was enough to make him a New Orleans legend. "Sea Cruise," released in 1959, is one of those songs that captures an ent...
Allen Toussaint: The Gentleman Architect of the New Orleans Sound
The Gentleman Behind the SoundIf New Orleans music had a single architect — one person who designed the rooms, chose the colors, and arranged the furniture — it would be Allen Toussaint. He was a m...
Irma Thomas: The Soul Queen of New Orleans
The Soul QueenEvery city that matters has a queen, and New Orleans has Irma Thomas. Not the Queen of Pop or the Queen of Rock — the Soul Queen of New Orleans, a title she has held for so long and s...
Monk Boudreaux: Big Chief of the Golden Eagles Mardi Gras Indians
Big Chief of the Golden EaglesMonk Boudreaux is a living monument to one of New Orleans' most sacred cultural traditions. As Big Chief of the Golden Eagles Mardi Gras Indian tribe, he has spent dec...
Coco Robicheaux: The Blues Rougarou of Frenchmen Street
The Rougarou of Frenchmen StreetCurtis John Arceneaux was not born to be ordinary. Born in Ascension Parish to an Acadian family, he became a blues musician, a visual artist, a mystic, and a charac...
Buddy Bolden: The Cornetist Who May Have Invented Jazz
The Man Who Invented Jazz (Maybe)No one alive has ever heard Buddy Bolden play. There are no recordings. No wax cylinders, no acetate discs, no scratchy fragments preserved in some archive. There i...
Mahalia Jackson: The Queen of Gospel from New Orleans' Black Pearl
The Queen of GospelMahalia Jackson did not sing jazz. She did not sing blues. She did not sing pop or R&B or rock and roll, despite being courted by every label and promoter who heard her voice...
Dr. John: The Night Tripper Who Channeled New Orleans Voodoo into Music
The Night TripperBorn Malcolm John Rebennack in 1941, the man who became Dr. John created a persona so vivid, so steeped in New Orleans mythology, that it was sometimes hard to tell where the chara...
Louis Prima: Singer, Bandleader, Trumpeter, and the Wildest Show in Town
The Wildest Show in TownLouis Prima was five different entertainers packed into one unstoppable Italian-American body. He was a singer, an actor, a songwriter, a bandleader, and a trumpeter, and he...
Sidney Bechet: The First Great Jazz Soloist from New Orleans
The First Great Jazz SoloistBefore Louis Armstrong became the face of jazz, there was Sidney Bechet — a clarinetist and saxophonist from New Orleans who was recording months before Armstrong entere...
Louis Armstrong: The Most Influential Jazz Figure of All Time
Satchmo, Satch, PopsLouis Armstrong is not just a New Orleans musician. He is the New Orleans musician — the one whose name is synonymous with jazz itself, whose gravelly voice and golden trumpet t...
Earl King: The Songwriter Who Shaped the New Orleans Sound
The Songwriter Who Shaped a SoundEarl King never became a household name outside of New Orleans, which is one of those injustices that the music industry specializes in. Inside the city, though, he...
The Bywater Train: Guaranteed to Make You Late to Work or Drinks
Guaranteed to Make You LateThere is a particular kind of dread that settles over you when you are driving through the Bywater and you see the crossing gates start to lower. The lights flash. The be...
S&WB: Barely Functions but Will Still Overcharge You $400 a Month
Boil AdvisoryTwo words that no New Orleanian wants to hear but every New Orleanian has heard more times than they can count. Boil advisory. It means do not drink the water from your tap. Do not bru...
Carlos Marcello: The Godfather Who Controlled the Gulf South for Three Decades
The Godfather of the Gulf SouthCarlos Marcello was the boss of the New Orleans Mafia for more than three decades, controlling a criminal empire that stretched from the bayous of Louisiana to the ca...
Rosette Rochon: The Free Woman of Color Who Invested in the Faubourg Marigny
A Free Woman of Color Who Built an EmpireRosette Rochon was a free woman of color of French and Native American descent who became one of the most successful real estate investors and entrepreneurs...
Henry C. Ramos: The Man Who Invented the Ramos Gin Fizz
The Most Famous Mixologist of the SouthIn 1888, a bartender named Henry C. Ramos invented a cocktail at his saloon, the Imperial Cabinet, on Gravier Street in New Orleans. The drink was a frothy, c...
