the rix mix

Stayed up late Sunday night 8/28/05 into Monday morning watching this monster on radar. It slightly diminished in intensity & shifted east as it approached landfall. That day it appeared the Mississippi coast had gotten the worst of it & New Orleans had escaped devastation. The remainder of the week was a nightmare, tragedy upon tragedy, unforgettable images  we never thought we'd witness in America.

The following Sunday I filled in on the Glen Jones radio show. I didn't want to discuss Katrina in detail or focus on New Orleans music, which was getting plenty of air play & wasn't music I knew in depth anyway, but I felt I ought to acknowledge it. No question I would open the show with Louis Armstrong singing "Azalea" ("A fine spring day, down Louisiana way,") accompanied by Duke Ellington, & a short set including Lucinda Williams' happy song about returning home to "Crescent City," Kid Thomas playing "Four Leaf Clover" (a favorite tune of my grandmother, who played a stride version on the piano) , & something by Jelly Roll Morton. The show ended with The Beach Boys' "Sail On Sailor " ("Stop the crying and the lying  And the sighing and my dying") & "Pure & Easy by the Who ("playing so free like a breath rippling by").

Labels: in the news, weather