i returned last monday from what is now becoming an annual pilgrimage for me – another trip down to new orleans for the the jazz and heritage festival. two long weekends with a huge amount of artists to choose from, and once again my group selected the second weekend.

thursday has usually been my favorite day there, as the ‘fest’ experience is fresh, the crowds tend to be a little smaller, and it is a good day to visit the smaller stages and local acts. if you have never been there, on any given day there are 12 – 14 different stages with an average of 5-6 acts on each one, starting at around 11 am each day and ending promptly at 7 pm each evening. but this thursday was different as the rolling stones were the main event – a third attempt to get them there as the first two were cancelled because of covid and then mick’s health. so they not only booked the main draw on the opening day, but they also took the unprecedented move of closing all the other stages for the last two slots of the day. so it was crowded on the main stage, like nothing i had ever seen there.

the stones put on a great show, and had two local legends join them on stage – dwayne dopsie on ‘let it bleed’ and irma thomas on ‘time is on my side’. ivan neville’s dumpstafunk went on before them and killed it, but it was overall probably my least favorite day there.

friday got off to a late start as some thunderstorms moved through the area, but i was able to catch the last half of local act andrew duhon. enough that i made note to look into him more when i got home. cyril neville’s uptown ruler and then lil’ nathan and the zydeco big timers gave me some more local flavor – what i really come down here for.

i then caught allison russell in the blues tent, although she really is by no means a blues based artist. she has been making a bit of a splash nationally in the last year, and so i was anxious the see her live. she is a very talented woman, and a unique sound, but she went off on a political rant for a tad too long for me, and so i freed myself to find something else. i grabbed myself some jambalaya and headed off to the congo square stage and caught up with steel pulse for most of their time slot. i had not seen them live in probably over thirty years.

i was a huge fan of theirs when i was in college. although only about 3-4 members of the original band were still together, i am happy to report that they still sounded great and really nailed it. i finished with catching the last few songs of foo fighter’s set on the big stage before departing for the night.

saturday i started out with local zydeco artist yvette landry and the jukes. i have seen her here twice before and she is well worth the repeat visits. the rumble featuring chief joseph boudreaux junior had a real funky sound, and then i went to the gospel tent for some classic old school gospel from the zion harmonizers.

after some creole rice with chicken and tasso, i took a break from the sun and heat in the hospitality tent before heading over to catch nickel creek at my favorite smaller stage. i have to say that they might have been the highlight of my weekend. i was not crazy about their last album (i reviewed a few months ago), but they were very entertaining and sharp, and they were clearly happy to be there. i finished the evening as before, catching most of neil young and crazy horse at the big stage.

sunday was always looking to be the best overall day, and it really did not disappoint. we started off at the second biggest stage and caught local talent mia borders. she has a new album coming out in august and did a real energetic set. you will hear more from me on her later.

next up was a recently formed ‘super group’ called dragon smoke – made up of ivan neville, guitarist eric lindell, and the rhythm section of galactica. they lived up to the hype and burned it to the ground for about an hour. following them were the radiators, and i watched about half of their set before heading back over to the gospel tent (it was sunday after all). local soul artist jonte landrum had a solo spot there, and had her family accompany her as she belted out some gospel classics. that girl can sing. from there i went over to dwayne dopsie and the zydeco hellraisers. dwayne was very animated about his time on stage with the stones earlier in the festival, and did a couple of covers in their honor. bonnie raitt was next, and then i caught a bit of the wallflowers before heading home and closing out another successful trip to the big easy.

hat tip to john camp for the videos here. if you like what you see there is plenty more of that on his youtube page.

for years, decades really, i have been aware of the large music festival held each year in new orleans, known mostly as jazzfest. what i did know about it turned out to be mostly true, in that it was a very large event that featured a wide variety of musical styles, not just jazz, and that you could wander around all day and take in as many artists as you could muster. for a music lover like myself, this sounded like manna from heaven. i also envisioned that in a perfect world, i could go there on my own, not have a specific plan in place, and just go where the muse led me, unencumbered by any other distractions.

but for whatever reason, i never took the initiative to go down there. that is, until i met some like minded friends about 5 years ago who had similar tastes in music, and had been going down there every year for a long time. they graciously offered to allow mrs redeyegin and myself to tag along with them the next spring, and walk us through the experience. that was in 2018, and we had so much fun we went again, taking another couple with us the next year. after two trips down, i sought permission to go down on my own with the group. with the pandemic, that reality did not come into play until last weekend, the first jazzfest since my 2019 trip.

for a voracious music consumer like myself, it is somewhat akin to a football game with four quarters (if you do the whole final weekend – it is four days of music from 11 am to 7 pm). you look at the various stages and artists ahead of time, have a game plan, and then prepare accordingly. and if you are smart, you have a plan b in case you need to make some game time adjustments. an example would have been on friday, when the heat got to me, and i decided to hang out in the gospel tent (out of the sun and water misters overhead) for about an hour. you also have to pace yourself, because each day has a great lineup, and you want to see as much as possible. it is not hard to see 5 different artists each day, and if the logistics work out see at least part of 2 other acts.

have i mentioned the food yet? logistically, the overall event is very well run, but maybe the best feature, other than the music, is the vast variety of food that is offered by local vendors. you will not go hungry here.

one of things i like best about this festival is that all of the final acts finish by 7 pm. you are back at your hotel and ready to go out to dinner by 8 pm. at dinner we would compare notes – who was the best you saw today, which one surprised you, and what were the best covers.

on thursday i saw the iguanas, leo nocentelli, new orleans suspects, playing for change band, billy strings, and ended the evening in the blues tent with betty lavette. the suspects and playing for change were two bands not on my radar, but they are now. the latter did a great cover of stevie wonder’s ‘higher ground’. betty’s cover of john prine’s ‘souvenirs’ was very moving. A good way to end a great day.

on friday, after a rain delay, i saw flow tribe, cimafunk, the zion harmonizers, sonny landreth, and finished with black crowes at the big stage. cimafunk, a funk band from cuba, was one of my highlights. not exactly my cup of tea, but they were killing it. black crowes covered ‘papa was a rolling stone’ , which they said was on their newest album, ‘1972’. apparently all covers from that year. i have that on order and will let you know what i think.

saturday i started the day in the blues tent with bill kirchen, then buckwheat zydeco jr, rory block, a bit of rickie lee jones, puss n boots (a norah jones side project), shovels and rope, then the legendary mavis staples. i was impressed with shovels and rope – they did a very energetic set. kirchen’s ‘times they are a changing’ cover was the highlight of his set.

sunday started with brother tyrone and the mindbenders, then off to the gospel tent for some religion with the dynamic smooth family. yvette landry and the jukes, honey island swamp band, dwayne dopsie and the zydeco hellraisers, beausoleil, ricky skaggs, and then finished in the blues tent once again with buddy guy. a very busy day. yvette, dwayne and ricky were great, and my favorite cover was the latter doing bill monroe’s ‘uncle pen’.

all in all a great weekend, and i look forward to going back again.

did i mention 1972 above? on a side note, today is the 50th anniversary of the release of the stone’s ‘exile on main street’. reader bill vv sent this tribute to me.

although i have written about my musically related travels before, somehow exiting the fiasco of the last 16 months gives me a renewed vigor to go out on the road and see some live music at some bucket list venues. so i will give a new title to this volume of work, and hopefully there will be many more to come soon.

volume two was inspired by the subject of my post two weeks ago. mrs. redeyegin and i were sitting on the back porch listening for the first time to the new tedeschi trucks album with the live ‘layla’ recording from lockn’.

as is her wont, she can multitask and surf her phone while she listens to music. at some point in the second set or so she says: ‘you know, they are playing in red rocks in two weeks.’ i likely replied something to the effect of ‘ that would be great first show there’ (having never been there before).

within about a half hour, right about the time the cd was ending, she had all the logistics and pricing worked out. i had to check my schedule at work, but by monday she locked it all in.

for those that don’t know, red rocks amphitheater outside of denver is one of the premier (if not the premier) outdoor music venues in the country. a geological phenomenon, the naturally occurring theater was created over the eons, with two large slabs of sandstone rock posing as the outside walls, looking down over a steep canyon that rolls down to another rock wall behind it. it is located at a transitional zone where the high plains meet the rockies, about 6500 feet above sea level.

many local artists performed there informally after the turn of the last century, but things really took off after it was decided in 1936 to start formally building the infrastructure. it was added to the list of projects for the new deal inspired civilian conservation corp. the major part of the project was to add seating and stairs to the steep canyon. it was finally completed in 1941, just over 80 years ago.

because of its natural beauty and extraordinary acoustics, it is a must stop for not only musicians but fans as well. the fact that i had never made it out there before was not acceptable, and so it was time to go.

logistically, we had all kinds of issues going there and back, none of them being the fault of my fearless planner. let me just say that we have nothing good to say about frontier airlines and stubhub. oh, and did i mention that it was pouring down rain that afternoon up to about 30 minutes before the show? the rain began falling softly again after the first set, but by then i had fallen in love with the place, and tedeschi trucks were playing so great it was all worth it.

it was not until the day of the show, after doing some reading, that i realized they likely were not going to be playing with their full band. due to covid and other considerations, they were traveling without their horn section and most of the backup singers. they had also replaced one of their drummers and had a relatively new keyboardist.

i was a little bummed about that, but halfway through the first set it became clear that the new format allowed derek and susan to focus on some older blues oriented songs and stretch out a little bit. susan may have benefited the most, as she got more guitar playing time, and easily filled up the vocal space and the canyon with her tremendously strong voice.

when they came out for the second set, i noticed another guitarist that was not there before. they did not do any closeups of him, other than his guitar, but i seemed to recognize both his playing and visual styles. after a few songs they introduced nels cline from wilco, and it all made sense. nobody around me knew who he was – most knew wilco but not their lead guitarist. derek is one of the best guitarists on the planet, but so is nels. he has a more avante garde approach than derek, but he played a more traditional approach for the evening. he easily held his own with derek and the rest of the band for the rest of the night. they closed the second set with the allman brothers’ ‘in memory of elizabeth reed’. derek and nels would have made duane and dickie and the boys proud. it was stunning.

a perfect capstone to a wonderful night at the foot of the mountains.

thanks mrs. r.e.g., let’s go back soon.

as i mentioned in my last post, i went out to see billy strings the other night. my first large venue concert in about 18 months. having attended a number of social events since then, and mentioning this fact to a few people i regard as being reasonably well informed in music, i was somewhat surprised to find that hardly anyone had ever heard of him.

for the uninitiated, the next inevitable follow up question to me would be’ what kind of music is it?’. and my awkward response would be something like ‘well, it’s bluegrass, but then it isn’t’. at their very musical core, billy and his three cohorts are top notch bluegrass musicians. stripped down to their acoustic guitar, banjo, upright bass and mandolin, they can dial up classic bluegrass numbers that would make bill monroe proud. however, through the use of pickups and other gizmos, they can easily electronically ramp it up to jam band rock riffs. the whole show was spent going back and forth between these two extremes very comfortably and effectively. and it was fairly relentless, in a good way. other than a 15 minute set break, they really never stopped playing for a full three hours.

i was curious to see what the crowd would be like, as billy is 28 but many of the people i know that follow him are my age (not 28). i wasn’t really surprised to find the atmosphere in the parking lot to be akin to a dead show. in fact, the venue – legend valley (formerly known as buckeye lake), was where i last saw the grateful dead.

i brought the redeyegin twins with me, who are close to billy’s age. they had heard of him, but were not familiar with his music. well, they are now, and i think they are converted.

he is touring all summer, so if you are looking for something new to add to your concert schedule this year, i highly encourage you to check them out. it was easily one of the best shows i have seen in a long time.

thanks for driving, freddie.