Southern Bookman

Aretha Franklin shakes the rafters in gospel documentary "Amazing Grace"

Aretha Franklin never left the church, her father exclaims in the documentary "Amazing Grace."

The film shot in 1972 shows Franklin recording her live gospel album "Amazing Grace" at the New Temple Missionary Baptist Church in Los Angeles' Watts district.

Unlike the album, her career best-seller, the film remained locked away for years because famed director Sydney Pollack failed to synchronize sound and action. Producer Alan Elliott discovered raw footage, fixed the technical problems with digital technology and completed an 89-minute film.

But before her death, Franklin prevented the documentary's release. After she died, her estate agreed to let the film come out in 2018.

Franklin grew up singing in the Detroit mega-church of her father, the Rev. C.L. Franklin, a nationally known evangelist. She'd already recorded her big popular hits in 1972, when she decided at age 29 to return to her gospel roots and record the live album. 

A regal presence in white caftan and robes, Franklin reaches a higher realm with her singing. As her father says in an electric appearance, her voice was a gift touched by God.

Performing gospel standards like "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" and the title song, along with pop-inflected numbers like Marvin Gaye's "Wholly Holy" and Carole King's "You've Got a Friend," Franklin marshals her vocal power like an ethereal instrument, reaching high notes that cause men to weep and women to faint.

Gospel powerhouse the Rev. James Cleveland is a commanding presence, extolling the audience with his booming voice, accompanying Franklin by singing and playing the piano, and conducting the fine Southern California Community Choir. At times overweening, Franklin softens his showmanship with warmth and his enthusiasm for gospel.

Under the direction of the young and vibrant Alexander Hamilton, the Southern California Community Choir steals many scenes. With silver vests and black shirts, the choir responds to Franklin with passion and energy. Their "amens," frenetic movements and spirited singing reveal the roots of  James Brown and other soul performers.

In one of the best moments, a male choir member with Afro and mustache fights back tears as Franklin improvises on "Amazing Grace." Her other-worldy keens and soaring and falling registers show a stunning virtuosity. Her father says she reached a "synthesis" of Mahalia Jackson and Cleta Ward. Her "Amazing Grace" mixes in elements of Eliza Fitzgerald and instrumentalists like Charlie Parker and Lester Young, blended into her special artistry.

Franklin's crack band of guitarist Cornell Dupree, drummer Bernard Purdie, bassist Chuck Rainey and keyboard player Kenneth Lupper make the oldest gospel hymns swing. As someone said, the blues gave rock and roll its rock, and gospel its roll.

The low-tech camera finds a surprise among the gray-lit audience, Mick Jagger and Charlie Watts, unrecognized by the congregation. The Rolling Stones at the time were recording Exile on Main Street in Los Angeles. That album's gospel flavors likely were influenced by Franklin's performance.

Franklin's voice sends the audience into emotional raptures. A female companion of  the gospel pioneer Ward faints, and two women rise for an impromptu, frenzied dance. Seated at the piano, Cleveland can't resist a glance at the shaking backside of one of the women.

The appearance by Franklin's father gives the film a dramatic boost. C.L. Franklin heads to the altar and gives an impassioned appreciation of his daughter. A forceful, calculated speaker, Franklin exudes an unsettling mix of religiosity and charisma, inspirational and seductive.

His pride at his daughter's career glows when he tells an anecdcote about someone he sees at the cleaners saying that Aretha should return to the church. He answers that she never left. Songs like "Respect" retain their gospel foundation.

Later, in a strange scene, Franklin wipes the sweat from his daughter's s face as she plays the piano and sings a hymn about a place where people never age.

Cleveland was a mentor to Franklin when she began singing in her father's church as a child. During the film, her impassive face reveals her reserves of power in the presence of the two dynamic men of the gospel world.

The film's recovery is itself a story of "Amazing Grace." Franklin's voice, the impassioned performances of Hamilton, Cleveland and the choir, and the fervor of the congregation are uplifting gifts to a wounded nation. A TV channel would provide a great public service by broadcasting the movie to a broader audience.

No Woodstock nostalgia

I won't be joining the nostalgia for Woodstock's 50th anniversary.

As rccently explored in the New Yorker, a 30-plus CD set is out that records every moment of the festival that trashed Mr. Yasger's farm in upstate New York in mid-August 1969.

Every song. Every groovy statement from a performer on stage. Every whir of helicopter blades. Every peal of thunder, and distorted buzz from a speaker. Every announcement, such as the one about the bad brown acid going around.

I wouldn't pay 5 cents for the package, but I did see some of the Woodstock documentary on TCM recently. Some of the performances held up, such as Joe Cocker's cover of the Beatles' "A Little Help From My Friends." John Sebastian with his hippie-dippie tie-dyed goofiness was endearing. Richie Havens' peace anthems sill stirred the emotions. In their first public performance, Crosby, Stills and Nash were show-biz pros.

But the fatuous 'far out" dialogue made me shudder. The interviews with the hippie kids were a testament to idiocy. The event was a statement of wasted opportunity, of a human dead-end.

As authors David Wallace-Wells in "The Uninhabitable Earth" and Nathaniel Rich in "Losing Earth" have detailed, the communal, earth-loving ethos of Woodstock had no long-term effect.

Rich shows how the oil companies derailed efforts to cut carbon emissions. Wallace-Wells documents how emissions have increased in the last few years. Now, the world is running out of time, if it hasn't already.

When I was a young hippie, speaking that same spurious lingo, I enjoyed Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock" with its line, "we've got to get back to the garden." Tbe garden is burning.

 

 

Will Jimmy Buffett demolish Fiddlin' John Carson?

Jimmy Buffett's company wants to build a monstrous Margaritaville development in downtown Atlanta, destroying the building where Fiddlin' John Carson in 1923 recorded the first national country hit.

The Margaritaville plan sounds like the kind of high-concept debacle that has plagued the city for years. Remember Planet Hollywood and the ESPN Zone? These urban pleasure palaces sizzle for a few years, then fizzle out, leaving a hole in the urban fabric.

Buffett's development across the street from Centennial Olympic Park would bring the destruction of a small building at 152 Nassau Street where Carson recorded "That Little Old Log Cabin in the Lane" in 1923, along with "The Old Hen Cackled and the Rooster's Going to Crow."

Famed New York talent scout Ralph Peer recorded country singer and fiddler Carson and several local black performers at the building for Okeh Records. Despite Carson's wavering voice and the recording's scratchiness, "The Little Old Log Cabin" caught fire. The song's success led to a flourishing Atlanta recording industry, which eventually faded away as country music found a permanent home in Nashville.

Unless architect and downtown resident Kyle Kessler can succeed with a last-ditch effort to save the 152 Nassau building, the original site of Atlanta's recording industry will disappear, according to an excellent article Tuesday by the AJC's Jeremy Turley. Despite Kessler's online petition that has received 8,000 signatures, the Buffett company is preparing for the imminent demolition of the 152 Nassau building, Turley reported.

A deal with former Mayor Kasim Reed led to the Margaritaville developers receiving building permits for a 21-story Wyndham Hotel and time-share condos above an amusement park, according to the article. The city planning department sought to stop the project, but the developers threatened to sue. Reed then told the company he would support the plan if the luxury hotel were included, the newspaper reported.

Designed to draw aging affluent Parrotheads, the development will be near the giant downtown Ferris wheel, State Farm Arena, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the College Football Hall of Fame, the World of Coca-Cola and the Civil Rights Museum.

Despite these attractions, someone would have to be pretty wasted in Margaritaville to buy a time-share in downtown Atlanta. The Buffet company's plan contains all the signs of those Atlanta developments that have crashed in the past.

Ace AJC columnist Bill Torpy sounded the alarm in May about the threat to the Nassau Street building. The preservationists don't want to prevent Buffett fans from having their fun. They only ask that the Margaritaville plan incorporate the building in some way.

But the developers say they need to destroy the building to install a garbage facility, or a restaurant "grease trap," according to the AJC.

The preservationists point out the irony of a Buffett enterprise removing a major landmark of Atlanta's music history. Buffett began his career performing in small Atlanta clubs, according to Torpy and others.

The building on Nassau street isn't that distinctive, and has housed many businesses over the years, including a "Gone With the Wind Museum."

The Buffet corporation could easily find a way to preserve the place, perhaps as a museum of Atlanta's musical history, including Buffett's career.

The country pioneer Carson has a darker tie to Atlanta's history. He stirred anti-Semitic fervor by performing on the street during the Leo Frank murder trial in 1913. Frank, whose innocence has been established by historians, was convicted for the slaying of Mary Phagan and subsequently lynched by a mob in Cobb County.

Along with its place in music history, the 152 Nassau Building should be preserved as one of the last downtown sites dating back to that turbulent era of Atlanta's past.

 

 

 

 

 

Musician Doug Kershaw's "The Ragin' Cajun" a story of redemption

Louisiana performer Doug Kershaw's "The Ragin' Cajun" finds joy and redemption in a rough life of setbacks and self-destruction.

To be published in October by Mercer University Press, "The Ragin' Cajun" tells the common musician's story of numbing performances, drug addiction, poor life choices and unscrupulous managers and record producers.

The book stands apart from other rock memoirs in the literary quality of its revelations about Cajun culture.

Along with the Cajuns' well-noted joy, humor and musical talent, the book discloses the culture's violence, depression and propensity for addiction.

Sadly, it also details how cultural repression and existence on the edges of American life led to deep feelings of inferiority. In recent years, Cajun music, literature and cuisine have found long-overdue recognition.

Written with the novelist Cathie Pelletier, the book brings light to a little known and vanished way of life. Kershaw spent his first years on a houseboat on Louisiana's Mermentau River, where his Cajun family eked out a primitive swamp existence before World War II.

His father, Daddy Jack, precariously supported the family as a fisherman and trapper while his mother, Mama Rita was mired in punishing work. Their life seems medieval in its lack of modern comforts.

Unlike the happy portrait in Kershaw's signature song "Louisiana Man," his father was a violent drunk who frequently beat his mother and threatened the rest of the family. In a gruesome and gripping account, Kershaw tells how his father killed himself with a shotgun.

Despite Daddy Jack's violence, Kershaw remembers him fondly as a hard-working, resourceful man who generally treated him with kindness. Father Jack also gave his son the gift of music. And, the inspiration for "Louisiana Man," one of the best songs of the rock era:

"He's got fishing lines strung across the Louisiana river,
got to catch a big fish for us to eat.
Setting traps in the swamps catching anything he can,
he gotta make a livin', he's a Louisiana man,
Gotta make a livin',  he's a Louisiana man."

The book's Dickensien story gains narrative power when Mama Rita moves the family to the small town of Lake Arthur. There, Kershaw, who began playing a fiddle fashioned from a cigar box, launches his musical career playing "Jole Blon" and other Cajun favorites outside a cafe.

The strength and perseverance of Mama Rita were a constant rock for Kershaw until her death. The book relates how she gained her own slice of fame from Kershaw's career.

Kershaw and his brothers Pee-Wee and Rusty begin playing in the rough Cajun clubs in Jennings, La. Eventually, Kershaw and his brother Rusty find regional success on radio and early TV. Beset by unscrupulous managers, the Kershaws make their first recordings and land regular engagements at clubs along the Highway 90 strip around Lake Charles near the Texas border.

Now performing as a duo, Rusty and Doug record a couple of hits and land a spot on the most famous country show, the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tenn. The book gives recognition to the group as rock pioneers. Fusing traditional Cajun music with country and the blues, Rusty and Doug helped create rockabilly, the driving force of early rock.

After Rusty decides to leave the duo, Doug Kershaw continues as solo performer and songwriter in Nashville, hanging around with other future stars like Kris Kristofferson and Roger Miller. As with other musicians rising to fame, Kershaw gets hooked on drugs, in his case alcohol, amphetamines and eventually cocaine. Apparently he avoided heroin, which has wrecked so many musicians' lives.

Battling his addictions, poor business decisions and disastrous first two marriages, Kershaw perseveres and achieves success, thanks to an appearance along with Bob Dylan on Johnny Cash's national TV show. From there, Kershaw's fame grows as a frequent performer on TV, in Las Vegas, and in international concerts. He also records several hits.

But his personal life collapses. As financial worries mount, his addictions worsen. Later sections of the book grow less appealing. Brutally honest, Kershaw gives an unpleasant self-portrait of an unreliable, abusive personality. He explodes at band members and gains a bad reputation for showing up late for performances. His volatile behavior led to the hackneyed nickname echoed in the book's title.

Redemption comes with his marriage to his third wife, Pam. Despite starting a family with Pam, Kershaw continues his destructive behavior until Pam insists that he change his ways. With that dose of tough love, Kershaw at last finds tranquillity.

Assisted by his co-author Pelletier, the 83-year-old Kershaw tells his story in a frank, sometimes vulgar voice. His accounts of seeking to overcome addictions can be grueling, but he remains engaging even at the worst moments.

His earthy humor and folksy anecdotes reflect the Cajun joie de vivre that enabled them to overcome poverty and persecution. The book displays the story-telling power of "Louisiana Man."

The Mercer University Press deserves praise for publishing "Ragin' Cajun," which belongs among lauded recent memoirs by Bruce Springsteen, Keith Richards, Bob Dylan and Neil Young. Along with giving an in-depth look at the music business, Kershaw and Pelletier illuminate a forgotten segment of Cajun culture.

The book provides a valuable discography, including recordings Kershaw made with his brother Rusty, who died in 2001. Kershaw's extensive recordings, including those of traditional Cajun songs, warrant in-depth exploration.

With his Cajun novelty numbers and crowd-pleasing antics, Kershaw has been discounted as merely a niche musician. A dynamic performer, stylish songwriter, distinctive singer and accomplished fiddle player, Kershaw stands with the recently deceased Dr. John, Allen Toussaint and Fats Domino in the top tier of Louisiana musicians.

And, as this book richly illustrates, among the state's best storytellers.

 

How dark "Oklahoma" revival gave country flavor to "People Will Say We're in Love"

The "Oklahoma" revival now on Broadway gives a darker, stripped down interpretation of Rodgers and Hammerstein's classic musical.

New York Times theater critic Jesse Green in Sunday's Times analyzes how the new production changed "People Will Say We're in Love" from an operatta confection to sultry country-influenced love song.

In the new show, Curly strums a guitar as he serenades Laurie, shifting from the light-opera style made famous through the years by such stars as Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones and Hugh Jackman and Josefina Gabrielle.

Portraying Curly, Damon Daunno at one haunting moment in the new rendering breaks into a Hank Williams-reminiscent yodel. As Laurie, Rebecca Naomi Jones shimmers close to Daunno in a sultry, seductive dance, a radical shift from the coy and mocking performances of  Jones and Gabrielle.

Without bogging down in technicalities, Green analyzes how the revival directed by Daniel Fish changed the song's flavor. Music director Nathan Koci replaced the traditional theater pit orchestra with an on-stage ensemble that plays country string instruments.

In a treat for those with some understanding of musical theory, Green analyzes how Koci changed the song's key and voice styling. With all of the changes, one of Rodgers and Hammerstein's most beautiful songs keeps its essence.

The Broadway revival has resulted in a new cast recording. A separate Times article traces the history of "Oklahoma" cast recordings. The first was Decca Records' pioneering effort in 1943, recorded on multiple 78s.

I'm looking forward to hearing the revival cast's new interpretations of standards like "Surrey With the Fringe on The Top" and the sweeping theme "Oklahoma."

After years as one of those Rodgers and Hart acolytes, I gained new appreciation for Hammerstein's collaboration with Rodgers by hearing Blossom Dearie's jazzy and seductive recording of "Surrey With the Fringe on the Top."

Koci's new arrangements of "Oklahoma" songs will open the music to new artistic interpretations. A country or pop duo will surely follow Koci's path and record "People Will Say We're in Love."

 

 

 

Farewell, Dave Bartholomew

The day after New Orleans said goodbye to Dr. John, the city lost rock n' roll pioneer Dave Bartholomew at age 100.

Bartholomew, best known for producing Fats Domino's recordings and co-writing many of his hits from the late 1940s through the 1960s, died Sunday at a suburban New Orleans hospital, his family announced. The day before, memorial services celebrated the music of Mac Rebennack, who created the Dr. John persona. Dr. John died the week before at age 77.

Along with Allen Toussaint, Bartholomew shaped the 1950s New Orleans rhythm and blues scene from which Dr. John rose. Along with his work with Domino, Batholomew produced many of the hits that poured out from Cosimo Matassa's J&M recording studio

Bartholomew mixed elements of country and western, blues, jazz and New Orleans brass bands into the black strand of rock and roll. Bartholomew and Domino's 1949 hit "The Fat Man," a remake of an old blues number, is recognized as one of the first rock and roll recordings.

He co-wrote Domino's "Ain't That a Shame," "Blue Monday," "I'm Walking" and other hits, and gave the bluesy rock sound to Domino's covers of standards like "Blueberry Hill." Little Richard's early hits also displayed the Batholomew signature.

A member of the songwriters and rock hall of fame, Bartholomew wrote "My Ding-a-Ling," a No. 1 hit for Chuck Berry, which I've always considered it one of his worst recordings.

Known as a harsh taskmaster, Bartholomew clashed with the free-spirited Domino, according to a Times-Picayune story. Their rock hits blended Bartholomew's tight musical structure and Domino's exuberance.

A native of Edgard, La., who escaped from the sugarcane fields, Bartholomew started out as a highly regarded trumpet player, in a line connected with Louis Armstrong. He also led a number of bands and recorded his own highly regarded albums.

Bartholomew and Dr. John's deaths follow those of Toussaint and Domino in recent years. Like New Orleans' jazz pioneers in the early 20th century, they produced revolutionary music that changed the world.

 

 

Tony Awards fall flat

Watching college baseball, I missed much of the Tony Awards Sunday night. The few musical numbers I caught lumbered with the worst excesses of Broadway, making me glad that I'd mostly remained at the ballpark.

The lackluster and disjointed Tonys show did have the surprise of "Hadestown" winning seven more awards than "To Kill a Mockingbird."

On a night where "Network's" Bryan Cranston beat out "To Kill a Mockingbird's" Jeff Daniels for the aging white male leading man award, "Hadestown" dominated the musical field. It looked more interesting than productions based on Cher, the Temptations, Tootisie and Bettlejuice.

The legendary Elaine May's wry and gracious acceptance speech for her best leading actress award increased my desire to see her performance in Kenneth Lonergan's "The Waverly Gallery." But then I discovered the play had already closed.

I liked host James Corden's collection of jackets, but his cloying, overeager performance wore out its appeal. After mocking the Tonys' low TV ratings in a promising opening production number, he generated more groans than laughs. Corden should remain in the steppes of late night TV.

Oh well, Broadway is booming, according to The New York Times, and the "Hadestown" bonanza and best play recognition for Jez Butterworth's "The Ferryman" indicated an approval for imaginative theater over commercial, crowd-pleasing productions.

Too bad that Broadway couldn't put on a better show for its shrinking national TV audience.

 

Farewell, Dr. John

Mac Rebennack gained fame with his "Dr. John the Night Tripper" persona, drawing upon the voodoo and Mardi Gras Indian traditions of his native New Orleans.

Moving away from the most ostentatious elements of the camp-swamp character during the years, he drew more and more upon his virtuoso playing, mixing avant garde daring with American roots perspective.

With Dr. John's death at age 77, the world has lost another music master with deep connections to New Orleans jazz, rock 'n roll and rhythm and blues.

An innovator, he was also a preservationist with an encyclopedic knowledge of the city's musical history and families.

His university was the city's postwar clubs and recording studios, learning from Dave Bartholomew, Fats Domino, Professor Longhair, Harold Battiste and others. Dropping out of high school, he began playing professionally in his early teens. Breaking further from his middle-class background, he fell into a life of petty crime and drug addiction. After years of struggle, he freed himself from his heroin dependence.

Rebennack started out as a guitarist, until a finger injury from a gunshot incident made him switch to the piano. As with the late Allen Toussaint, he fashioned a distinctive keyboard style that showed traces of New Orleans piano masters James Booker, Champion Jack Dupree, Jelly Roll Morton, Fats Domino and Professor Longhair.

While younger musicians like Trombone Shorty, Harry Connick Jr., Terence Blanchard and Jon Batiste add to New Orleans' legacy, they are several generations removed from those who made pioneering records in New Orleans in the 1940s, 50s and '60s. Their sound is more refined and academically influenced.

The musicians from whom Dr. John learned played with some of the city's early 20th century pioneers. Dr. John's music built upon the raw power of the music's origins.

A longtime session musician for other artists, Dr. John in his solo act brought a new sound and performing energy to popular music. As his career deepened, he presented fresh interpretations of American standards, while staying connected to younger innovative musicians.

Dr. John was one of those protean New Orleans performers who personify the city.

 

 

Farewell, Doris Day

Were Doris Day and Marilyn Monroe really so different?

Day, who died Monday at age 97, presented a wholesome, virginal image that contrasted with Monroe's smoldering sexuality, according to The New York Times' front-page obituary.

Times film critic A.O. Scott gave a shrewder assessment of Day's movie persona in the essay, "Hip Sex Goddess Disguised as the Girl Next Door." An accompanying photo shows Day in "Pillow Talk," sitting on the side of a bed wearing a slip and showing off her million-dollar legs. As Scott pointed out, Day in another movie with Rock Hudson sang a swinging number with an all-black group.

Monroe played the girl next door disguised as the hip sex goddess. Day and Monroe could have been sisters, Monroe wilder, Day the studious one who might binge on drinks during a crazy date.

Like Day, Monroe rose from meager beginnings. Both showed their greatest acting in conforming to manufactured personal lives. Both of their images were defined by made-up alliterative names.

The photo with the Times obituary shows Day with Hudson, whose gay sexuality the studios hid. Day wears elbow-length white gloves and a seductive white dress, as sultry and unapproachable as Monroe.

We could never imagine the Kennedy brothers having affairs with Day, but we could imagine Day dazzling JFK with a rendition of "Happy Birthday."

Monroe died young, a victim of drugs, her last movie made with Clark Gable, who also played the older man in a film with Day. Day lived for years in retirement, like Donna Reed rendered sexless and matronly by TV.

But before Hollywood created Day's virginal image, she was a dazzling sex star, bringing the movies a new type of independent woman, not as ethereal and purely sensual as the 1930s'  Jean Harlow. Day was the model for the blond Hollywood stars who followed, who displayed different aspects of her persona.

The 1950s and 1960s blondes appear on a spectrum of glamour, sexual promise, all-American fun and unattainability. Grace Kelly. Kim Novak. Jayne Mansfield, Doris Day.

The kaleidoscope shifts to Faye Dunaway and Jane Fonda. But they were not that far removed from Day. Fonda's Barbarella and Dunaway's Bonnie Barrow kept a touch of innocence.

The movie "Young at Heart" with Frank Sinatra, Gig Young, Ethel Barrymore and Dorothy Malone revealed Day's greatness as an actress. I never cared much for her work with Hudson, but Day gave an Oscar-worthy performance as the life-affirming young woman perplexed and attracted by the cynical loser played by Sinatra.

Day was also one of the last links to the great World War II generation of singers who could unite the nation with a song like "Sentimental Journey," recorded with Les Brown and His Band of Renown. As a 1940s pop star, Day was the female incarnation of Sinatra.

Her postwar recordings of classics such as "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered" and "It's Been a Long, Long Time" display flawless diction and phrasing. While the productions are over-orchestrated with lush strings and background singers, she raises them to the highest artistic level. Her vocal inflections explore the lyrics' full emotional register.

Day's "Que Sera Sera" was one of the last 1940s-'50s style of pop songs that became a hit in the heady days of rock and teen angst. Again, she overcomes the sickly sweet arrangement, her expressive singing bringing out the timeless truth in the simple lyrics.

The countercultural era that pushed Day into retirement produced Peggy Lipton, who died just before Day. Lipton presented a different kind of TV blonde on "Mod Squad," young and hip, and eager to hook up, or so we imagined.

But she too, like all of the Hollywood blondes, had to retain an element of the girl next door.

 

New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival shows city's resilience

I once more knew what it means to miss New Orleans when I read Jay Pareles' New York Times article Thursday about the 50th Jazz and Heritage Festival, which begins this weekend in the Crescent City.

While New Orleans is known for its dysfunctional local government, high murder rate and economic distress, the Jazz and Heritage Festival is an overwhelming success.

As Pareles reports, the festival each year raises $3 million for the nonprofit foundation that puts on the event, which covers two weekends. The foundation uses the money for a range of educational programs and support for local musicians.

Perhaps the Jazzfest owes its popularity to being a daytime event. Going against New Orleans' reputation as a city that never sleeps, the Jazzfest closes each day at 7 p.m., as Pareles reported. That puts the focus on the music, rather than high-tech light shows and such.

Purists have criticized the festival for booking big names like this year's Katy Perry, but out of 688 performers, 600 are New Orleans and south Louisiana acts with mainly local followings, according to Pareles.

This year, a heralded appearance by the Rolling Stones stirred excitement, but the venerable group had to drop out because of Mick Jagger's heart surgery. Then replacement Fleetwood Mac canceled because of some mysterious illness suffered by Stevie Nicks. Now, Widespread Panic will perform.

The event began in 1970 at Beauregard Square, later known as Congo Square, a slave market where jazz originated with the slaves' chanting and dances. Growing success after a few struggling years led to the event moving to the New Orleans Fairgrounds. Jesus, I also remember betting on horse races there as a young man. I attended several of the early festivals at the fairgrounds, but didn't go to another until years later, when the event resumed after Hurricane Katrina.

Along with the music, the festival offers a great selection of Cajun, Creole and other varieties of New Orleans food. Sometimes I think of going just to get another helping of jambalaya.

You can have the Stones, Fleetwood Mac and Widespread Panic. I'm homesick to see New Orleans performers Irma Thomas, the Meters, the Neville Brothers and so on. I'd especially love to see master pianist Ellis Marsalis perform April 28 with his sons Wynnton, Branford, Delfeayo and Jason. Now in his 80s, Ellis played a big part in the festival's early success.

Every year when the Jazzfest rolls around, I think of my late friend Loftin, who had a complete collection of Jazz Festival posters. Hard to imagine that this will be the fifth Jazzfest he'll miss.

This year's poster shows the family of performers who have appeared at Jazz Fest, including those no longer with us like Professor Longhair and Fats Domino.

Many believe New Orleans won't survive. Old and new generations of Jazzfest musicians say otherwise.