Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

The gumbo sound mixes with chile in Austin

Washington Post:

The self-proclaimed Live Music Capital of the World, the place that gave rock-and-roll superstar Janis Joplin her start in the 1960s, is sounding a little funkier these days. The chili, as one of the famed Neville Brothers sings in his new regular gig, has met the gumbo.

Among the estimated 1 million Louisiana and Mississippi Gulf Coast residents displaced by Hurricane Katrina are musicians trying to reestablish New Orleans's distinct second-line beat in a city better known for folk and roots, rhythm and blues, indie rock and country rock.

The city's population of more than 8,700 musicians has not only grown a bit but also diversified racially and ethnically. Relocated here indefinitely, among others, are Cyril Neville and Tribe 13, Ivan Neville and Dumpsta Funk, the Hot Eight Brass Band, the Iguanas, the Caesar Brothers Funk Box, the Radiators, and Big Chief Kevin Goodman of the Flaming Arrows Mardi Gras Indian tribe. Some of them have even created an ad hoc band with a name that sums up who they are today, post-Katrina: "The Texiles."

"We all want to go back, but how can you go back to a situation like that? Everything was so vibrant and now everything is dead," said Dale Spalding, 56, a harmonica player and vocalist. "New Orleans was a great musical scene; it was intoxicating. But Austin is a very rich musical town, too."

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Club owners, such as Steve Wertheimer of the well-known Continental Club, opened his home to homeless musicians and began putting them to work by scheduling gigs. Clifford Antone, owner of the legendary blues club Antone's, organized four relief concerts to benefit charities helping Katrina evacuees. Roadhouse blues singer and pianist Marcia Ball organized her own concert to directly benefit the displaced musicians and create a relief fund that continues to distribute cash to those still trying to reestablish their careers.

A small group of musicians and music fans created Instruments of Healing to replace instruments the New Orleans musicians lost. And the Austin airport, which features live musical performances five days a week at three in-house venues, added a 10th gig on Thursday afternoons showcasing the displaced musicians. The performance series is co-underwritten by an airport concessionaire and Austin honky-tonk country band leader Lucky Tomblin.

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Storm-tossed New Orleans musicians have resettled in music capitals such as Nashville (where Aaron Neville has established his home), Memphis, New York and Los Angeles. But since the hurricane, musicians also have relocated throughout Louisiana and to Atlanta; Houston; Dallas; Birmingham; Orlando; Santa Fe; Montgomery, Ala.; Portland, Ore.; and even Hoboken, N.J. Some have trickled back into the flooded city. Others are in and out, playing in reopened clubs and hoping they, too, can start their lives anew in New Orleans next year.

Cyril Neville and his wife, singer-writer Gaynielle Neville, just bought a house in southwest Austin and have helped resettle 10 members of the extended Neville family and 26 of Gaynielle's relatives here. Neville said he has no desire to return to a New Orleans that will never be the same.

"The majority of the black people are gone and that has been, for a long time, a black city," he said. In majority-white Austin -- where he found the response to aid his extended family "overwhelming" -- he said he sees a "level of positivity" and goodwill that has the potential to overcome racial strains. "My new home is here in Austin," he said.

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"I don't know if in the long term the music scene will change. But in the short term, we're going to get something going," he said. His stay in Austin so far has been everything the chaos of the Katrina aftermath was not back home.

"We just needed someone to hug us and say it was going to be all right," Goodman said. "We got that here."

Austin is a great city even if it does have too many liberals in it.