Go to the Mardi Gras – Professor Longhair
Going into this project, Louisiana was one of the single most daunting states. How could I pick just one song from this great state, that is home to such a cornucopia of genres, which birthed jazz, which played home to Dixieland and Zydeco, where Afro rhythms blend with southern twang, where fiddles fight with trombones and the streets are filled with music? It’s home to Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll. To Dr. John and Fats Domino. To Leadbelly and Jerry Lee Lewis and the Marsalis family and Tim McGraw and Lil Wayne. Heck, Jeff Mangum is from Ruston, while we’re at it. And then there are the folks not from Louisiana with epic songs about the place. First on the list being Randy Newman’s haunting “Louisiana 1927.”
But in the end, my decision was actually pretty easy. It had to be about New Orleans. It needed to be an invitation to joyous celebration. And it needed to embody the whole crazy mess of inflections and influences that makes the city so unique.
It’s a song that sounds like a permanent second line, marching around the consciousness of New Orleans, calling on everyone to dance and sing out in joyous noise.