Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival smokes in more ways than one

By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer

So much incredible music has been created from the blues’ simple I, IV, V chord progression that makes up the music’s backbone. Most classically, it all takes place in just 12 bars of music, a form that has been echoed in jazz, rock ‘n roll and beyond. Through time, environment and evolution blues-based music has greatly evolved from its African roots. Its initial transformation involved those who, through slavery, carried its essence into Southern cotton fields to ease their burden. It’s been changing and adapting ever since. The Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival presented at Lafayette Square on Friday, October 14 through Sunday, October 16, celebrates the genre in its many manifestations.

The now-legendary Taj Mahal, who performs at the fest at 7 p.m. on Saturday, October 15, stands out as an artist who throughout his over five-decade career has explored the blues from many angles. Performing at the event with his long-time trio, the versatile Grammy-winning guitarist and vocalist’s set will naturally be in tune with the Blues & BBQ’s theme. “We’ll focus on the blues and we’ll have the cousins and uncles and aunts and other relatives in the mix,” Taj declares. “I’m about the history of the music and the connections.”

The barbecue grills and the music heats up beginning at 5:30 p.m. on Friday evening with the soul/blues of The Suffers. Led by the big voice of Kam Franklin who is backed by a horn-loaded, 10-piece band, the group has been igniting the scene since it stepped out in 2011. Many New Orleanians might best recognize Franks as the smiling woman in the red and white polka dot dress livin’ up a street in a promotional advertisement for The Suffers’ hometown of Houston.

CEDRIC BURNSIDE

Women are a scarcity on the Blues Fest’s schedule that reflects to some degree the scarcity of their presence in the genre that brought us greats like Bessie Smith, Etta James and Koko Taylor. Representing the grit that females bring to the genre is Nikki Hill a soul blues vocalist, old school rock ‘n roller and blues belter. Hill hails from North Carolina and in 2014 she and her husband, guitarist Matt Hill moved “quietly” to New Orleans. The band has played a couple of gigs in the city — at Chickie Wah Wah and the Blue Nile — but is burnin’ up the road touring following the release of Hill’s 2016 album Heavy Hearts Hard Fist. She packs a wallop.

The free festival features two stages — the larger St. Charles Street Stage and the more intimate Camp Street Stage. After an act ends on one, the music kicks in on the other across the square. “Okay, turn around,” an emcee will often suggest to the crowd. The Camp Street Stage gets things started on both Saturday and Sunday beginning at 11 a.m. and closes down a little earlier too. The larger venue presents its first acts at noon and jumps past sundown with the closers taking the stage at 7 p.m.

On Sunday, Mississippi blues is well represented on the Camp Street side with the arrival of a duo from Natchez, guitarist/vocalist Lil Poochie and drummer/harmonica player Hezekiah Early. These two guys hooked up back in the late 1960s when Poochie (Robert Lee Watson) 65, who also led his own bands, would come in to sub in Early’s group Hezekiah and the House Rockers. Back then, Early, 82, stuck to his drumming figuring playing drums and harp didn’t mix. That changed after Early was recruited to play harmonica in the 1979 television movie, “Freedom Road,” which starred Muhammad Ali. When Ali complimented Early on his blowing, Hezekiah told the legend that he was actually a drummer not a harp man. “He said, ‘Man, look, why don’t you figure out a way to blow harmonica too,’” Early remembers. So from then on, Hezekiah began taping his harp to a microphone stand so he could play drums while he’s blowing. For a two-man band Poochie and Hezekiah get it done.

The Cedric Burnside Project brings it on with the romping hill country blues style originating from a little up north on the road from Natchez in the area around Holly Springs, Mississippi. The Project is also a dynamic duo that includes the grandsons of two legendary hill country legends. Leader, drummer and vocalist Cedric Burnside is the grandson of the great guitarist and vocalist, the late R. L Burnside and the Project’s guitarist and vocalist Trent Ayers is the grandson of the great guitarist and vocalist, the late Junior Kimbrough. Both elders were master purveyors of the hill country style and though, because they were both guitarists, they didn’t play together, they often toured and were double-billed for shows. So it’s absolutely fitting, and somehow touching, that these two young men are carrying on the hill country style and keeping their grandfathers’ songs out there. New material has also been injected into their blazing sets that have brought excited young audiences to this very special style of blues. Lately, Cedric has also been opening up the Project’s sets doing a few solo tunes and showing off his guitar licks.

New Orleans artists also have their specialties when it comes to playing the blues. Jon Cleary & the Absolute Monster Gentlemen (Saturday, 4:30 p.m.) often give it that Professor Longhair inspired flavor while guitarist Walter “Wolfman” Washington (Saturday, 3:15 p.m.) brings a more sophisticated, late-night, rhythm and blues feel.

Blues with a feeling whether raw or smooth can be found and enjoyed at the Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival that will be smokin’ in more ways than one.

This article originally published in the October 10, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.