Day Thirty Six – Jazz Fest Day Five

Blues idiom – Stavin’ Chain was a 19th century railway man of legendary strength and stamina. According to Lil’ Johnson’s 1937 recording of Stavin’ Chain:
‘Stavin’ Chain was a man of might,
He’d save up his money just to ride all night’

Another full day of music is ahead of us. We caught the second shuttle bus from Iggy’s. My breakfast this morning was sausage jambalaya and pecan pie.
In the Blues tent for the Colin Lake band. Colin is not high profile outside of New Orleans but he is a very fine player, songwriter and singer. I recommend you check him out via Mr. Google.

We then headed to the Gentilly stage for Luther Kent & Trickbag, for a set of mighty fine New Orleans R’n’B. Luther had a short stint as the touring singer with Blood Sweet and Tears. Also caught a little of Jarekus Singleton in the Blues tent. He is also worth following up.
We are all tired but I wanted to go out in the heat to see a little of Shooter Jennings (Waylon’s son) over on the Fais Do Do stage. It is hot out there. Damn hot. I heard the Fais do Do stage described as like a beach without the sea to cool off in. There is one large tree a ways back from the stage but this is well staked out.

Our main aim today was to see the super band ‘Voices of the Wetlands.’ A who’s who of New Orleans finest put together by Tab Benoit to high light the destruction of the wetlands and the problems this causes. Great music across many genres. One of the featured artist is Anders Osborne. Anders has a ruptured disc and you can see he is in agony. Virtually unable to walk but it don’t stop him. He stands, very painfully, with his guitar resting on a thigh high table. Unable even to sling his guitar due to the pain but it does not stop him ripping off a trade mark solo.

We got to the shuttle pickup around 6:45. Our pick up point is right in front of a restaurant with outdoor tables. It is packed with diners. One of the diners very close to me is wanting to give away his fried green tomatoes, not because they are not tasty but because he is already full. I took up his offer and pinched a fried green tomato from his plate. We share everything down in New Orleans.

Back to Iggy’s for a drink. I tried to order a Chardonnay with little success. Every bar I go to the conversation goes like this:
‘I’ll have a chardonnay please.’
Sorry, what did you want?’
A chardonnay please,
Sorry, I can’t understand,
No worries, I say, what white wine you got?’
We got chardonnay’
O.k. I’ll have that.’

When we got back to the apartment Mickey was waiting out front for us. It is after ten but Mickey was there to tell us that William has had word that his mother had passed away. Although it was expected we still felt very sad for William. Mickey said that William wanted to say goodbye to us as he will be leaving in the morning to fly to Georgia. William came out and we all gave him a hug. He had a gift for us. William worked in Queensland in the mining industry many years back. He loves our fauna and last year I gave him a toy Koala. He told us that his koala had mated (not sure with what, but this is New Olrenas)and he produced a lovely small head pillow that he had made at a local shop that had a red koala stencilled on it. Very nice gesturre of friendship. He wanted us to know that we are welcome back anytime.

Rob Rowe