Reading the South

by Hal Jacobs

George Green wants you to know the real New Orleans. Not the New Orleans of the slick Cajun chefs with their own TV shows, or the famous musicians who have moved away, or the experts who have lived in the Garden District for a few years.

He wants you to know what it was like in the 1950s and ‘60s to begin making the rounds of the clubs at 2 a.m., when the music started, and going strong until daybreak, then taking the bus home back to the ninth ward.

He wants to share those stories from the clubs – Hollie's, Club Off Limits, Nite Cap, Rose Tattoo, Benny's Bar, Dream Palace, Mason's Las Vegas Strip – that oldtimers still talk about. Like the night the lights went out at the Dream Palace with Cyril Neville and The Uptown Allstars:

How long the power would be off was on every sober mind in the place as the waiting began. The antique air conditioner shut down, the whine of the compressor on the beer box was suddenly missing, but the music never stopped. The amplified instruments were obviously useless but the rhythm went on! Willie Green kept the drums pounding, then Cyril joined in on percussion, cowbells found a way in, and other musicians on stage found things to beat on, heightening the groove. The people in the audience kept on dancing in the dark doing their best to keep up with the beat. Everybody's energy was dedicated to the beat that went on and on and on!

Green, a writer and photographer, has recorded (with no shortage of exclamation marks!) what it was like to hang out back in the day, for instance, waiting for musician Earl King to show up and hold court at the K&B drugstore lunch counter. He recreates some of those old conversations and the spirit of the times, drawing a line between the “hard faking wannabees” and the “straight-up, honest, tell it like it is, open shoot-from-the-hip, everyday people.”

The last section of the book, detailing his tribulations from Katrina, especially his days trapped in the dome, is a straight-up and honest account. Fortunately, Green made it out of New Orleans with soul and spirit intact, and gave us this fine tribute to house bands – and special moments – that made New Orleans what it is.

George Green, Say Good-bye to Old New Orleans (Big Easy Productions, 2008, paperback, 112 pages)

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