Author: Doug Riley

I was beginning to think that we may not get to see too much of New Orleans!
On the drive down from Natchez, all the in & out of air-con, humidity and sleeping without open windows finally got to my throat. That, plus the trip to the medical drop-in centre, coupled with some pretty fierce storms, was meaning that we weren’t getting out and about as we’d hoped. Last night, I slept a full 12 hours & didn’t feel much better this morning. But we went on the walking tour of The French Quarter at lunchtime, and it was very good. At least now I feel as though we’ve arrived in New Orleans, and that there’s far more to it than Bourbon Street.
I’ve got the Satchmo voice now, ironically! What a wonderful world.
I’ll keep taking the pills and we’ll see what happens.
And the museum where we ended the tour had a little section on rocn’n’roll and Fats Domino, which brought the trip to a suitable end. And now for some jazz tonight.

One of the joys of time travel is to be able to celebrate things for more than 24 hours. Last evening we received our first wedding anniversary greetings from Brian & Gillian and we had to wait 30 mins before celebrating it in French time. Then today we carried on in USA time. Thanks to Gillian at Audleys, the hotel in New Orleans greeted us at reception with “happy anniversary”, and then in our room we found a bottle of champagne & some lovely chocolates.
We had to chat to Ray, the concierge, about our 2 things pre-organised in New Orleans, and we mentioned our WA and asked for a restaurant for tonight that did NOT do deep fried shrimp, chicken, ham, pork, elephant, alligator etc (you get the picture!), and we got a recommendation. When we arrived, and got settled in, we were greeted with a complementary glass of champagne for our WA, courtesy of Ray!
Is there another time zone and we can carry on celebrating? It doesn’t feel like a day over 34 years!

An authentic blues night!!

We finally made it to BB Kings Blues Bar tonight, at a very useful time, to be given the best table in the house, on the balcony overlooking the stage. I had my first grits of the holiday, and they were great. Grits and shrimps, a delicacy.

And tonight, playing were the BB King All Stars, the house band. A real mix of blues and funk, with a trumpet, a sax, base and lead guitars, drummer, organist and vocalist. They were brilliant, and in their second session, they had a guest base guitarist and guest drummer jamming, who clearly were special, and well known to the locals. What was great was that, whilst there were tourists, there were also over 50% locals, there for the music. And what music. It was stunning.

And tomorrow we’re heading off to Clarksdale, somewhere I read about as the true home of the blues. It’s a very small town in Mississippi, with very few hotels and restaurants, and we’re staying in a flat above the old Woolworths shop. But apparently, there’s an amazing blues club. Should be interesting!

Photos to follow!

One for the Harley Davidson fans (& Honda) 

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As we’ve come South, it’s got warmer and today I decided to stop wearing shoes & socks, & go for fitflops & linen trousers. And the heavens opened. It sure knows how to rain here, and as the Gracelands visit is housed in 5 separate buildings, & his own graveyard ( yes, really! ), it did put a dampener on the morning’s events. To be fair, I like a lot of Elvis’s music, but this was just a bit too tacky for me. It’s all about the money.
And it probably has a finite life now in that we were the youngest people there. You should have seen the rush by the men for the restroom. It’s not often the queue for the gents is longer than for the ladies. As the 60’s generation dies out, it’s hard to see much of the nostalgia tourism continuing.
The Stax visit was more enjoyable, and informative. When the label started, there was no colour walked through the doors, just musicians. And what musicians, many of them living within walking distance. They couldn’t eat or drink in the same places in Memphis because of segregation, but at Stax they were all the same colour. The only place that they could mix was at the Lorraine Motel, which was black owned. And ironically, which was the site of Dr Martin Luther King’s murder, which changed the whole mood in Stax and which was one of the catalysts for its demise. A white owned and run record label, with a black roster of artists, and with studio musicians from all races.
Things that we Europeans on the whole don’t even think about.
One little erratum. Elvis was never one of their artists. He was at Sun records, where we’re going tomorrow.