Honoring the Music Makers and supporters

28th January 2019   ·   0 Comments

By Geraldine Wyckoff
Contributing Writer

New Orleans is blessed with so many fine musicians that most would agree that folks who live here are just plain spoiled and sometimes take our local artists for granted. Yeah, we go to their shows and dance to their music, though, too often, barely realizing what it took for them to reach their high level of accomplishments. Sometimes it’s nice to hear, “Hey man, thank you for the music!”

That goes for those behind the scenes as well – the educators, the business owners, the wives, husbands, sisters and brothers – without whom the musicians’ career pursuits would be more difficult or even impossible.

The Best of the Beat awards presented by OffBeat magazine, taking place on Thursday, January 31 at a party at Generations Hall, seeks to pay recognition to both the musicians and supporters for making and sustaining New Orleans as a music mecca.

The most prominent honor, which is announced prior to the party, is the Lifetime Achievement Award that this year goes to the legendary Walter “Wolfman” Washington. The guitarist, vocalist and composer who’s noted for his sophisticated, New Orleans late-night approach to the blues, is certainly a worthy candidate for this distinction.

Long before leading his own band, the Roadmasters, and working, as he does now, with organist Joe Krown and drummer Russell Batiste, Washington was perhaps best known for heading the group that backed the late, great vocalist Johnny Adams. People still talk about the duo’s most notorious gigs at Dorothy’s Medallion Lounge where they played until sunrise.

Washington, a notably sharp dresser who turned 75 in December, got his first gig with his cousin vocalist Ernie K-Doe, hit the road with singer Lee Dorsey, spent several years with New Orleans Soul Queen Irma Thomas and has recorded extensively under his own name and with others. A link to New Orleans rhythm and blues heydays of the 1950s and ‘60s, the Wolfman continues to keep the music fresh and innovative.

A band of New Orleans finest led by keyboardist David Torkanowsky with bassist Tony Hall, organist Krown, pianist Jon Cleary, guitarist Steve Mignano, vocalist Erica Falls and, of course members of the Roadmasters plus others will pay tribute to Washington at the Best of the Beat awards show. This element of the party is always special as the musicians, as well as the honorees, have such a good time.

The pre-announced selections of those chosen in what could be deemed a “supporters” category were given their awards at a separate function, last week. They include the Lifetime Achievement Award in Business to Doris Bastiansen, the longtime owner of Decatur Street’s Kerry’s Irish Pub that has been providing live music since 1993. John Snyder, a Grammy-winning producer who heads Loyola University’s Music Industry Studies program was recognized with a Lifetime Achieve-ment Award for Music Education.

OffBeat teamed with the Positive Vibrations Foundation, an organization that promotes and supports music-related events, artists and education, in presenting the annual Heartbeat awards.

This year, Positive Vibrations recognized Herreast Harrison in the Heartbeat’s Cultural Bearer category. Harrison, the wife of the late Big Chief Donald Harrison Sr. of the Guardians of the Flame and mother of jazz saxophone master Donald Harrison Jr. and Cherice “Big Queen Reesie” Harrison-Nelson, is a quietly forceful presence unto herself. Beyond helping her husband create Mardi Gras Indian suits, she continues to be active with a needle and thread for the Young Guardians of the Flame.

Harrison’s creative talents also extend to making award-winning quilts that have been exhibited in acclaimed museums both locally and nationally. Following the death of her husband, she established the Big Chief Donald Harrison Museum next to her Ninth Ward home as well as establishing the Guardians Institute. Its cornerstone is the Big Chief Donald Harrison Sr. Book Club that provides under-served children with hardcover books. “What better way to give to young children than to empower them with knowledge and just to instill in them how important it is to know things — to be curious and to want to excel?” she once asked while living the answer.

The Positive Vibration Heartbeat Award for Music honored clarinetist, composer, historian and educator Dr. Michael White. White, an internationally renowned artist has, of course, received many accolades throughout his career, though perhaps beyond his pure musicality, he is highly recognized for being a “keeper of the flame” of traditional New Orleans jazz. The clarinetist learned the importance of carrying on the music from his elders early on in his career and took their lessons to heart. Even on his original tunes, White remembers the essence of the classic New Orleans style jazz as heard at live performances and on his many fine recordings.

At the Best of the Beat party, the above award winners will again be acknowledged. The main focus this night, however, will be the individual awards in an array of categories – artist of the year, album of the year, best pianist, best drummer and so forth. The winners, which will be announced at the event, have been selected by votes from the public.

The festivities held at Generations Hall, 310 Andrew Higgins Dr. are from 6 p.m. to midnight. Tickets, available at www.offbeat.com, include free food from some 25 New Orleans restaurants and performances by Grammy-nominated Cha Wa and zydeco man Sean Ardoin, Water Seed, Iceman Special, Gregg Martinez & the Delta Kings and Nesby Phips plus the above mentioned tribute to the wonderful Walter “Wolfman” Washington.

This article originally published in the January 28, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.