Here’s New Orleans piano legend Allen Toussaint performing “Party Goin’ On” at the 2007 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. on bass, Jon Cleary on piano, Danny Caron on guitar, and Kenneth Blevins on drums. Here’s a video of the late, but very great, Johnny Adams performing “Walking on a Tightrope” featuring George Porter, Jr. Here’s a 1992 article by former WWOZ show host John Sinclair about the great Tommy Ridgley. This video includes his demonstration of the simple-sounding, but actually complex, drum arrangement of Fats Domino’s “I’m Walkin’.” Plus a brief performance including Allen Toussaint on piano!

We only mention the great New Orleans drummer Earl Palmer for a minute in this week’s program, due to time limitations - but his contributions to New Orleans R&B, and to all music, were immense. Here’s a short interview with the great Dave Bartholomew.Īnd here’s an interview with Cosimo Matassa, talking about how he got his start, and about working with Dave Bartholomew. Here’s a list of interesting links and information about the stories and music in this week’s show, “Lipstick Traces”: Sometimes it’s going more in-depth, sometimes it’s something cool we didn’t have time to go into, and sometimes it’s just plain fun. This week, we check out the music from that era, meet some of the people responsible for that sound, and find out how they got their start.Įvery week on New Orleans Calling, we provide additional material online to accompany each show, in case you’re interested in finding out more. And like everything else here, New Orleans R&B brought something different to music - it was more alive and more fun, with some serious rhythm. In the 1950s, the sound of New Orleans was Rhythm and Blues. Listen to this week’s episode of New Orleans Calling. Welcome to the WWOZ’s new nationally syndicated program, New Orleans Calling! You can listen to New Orleans Calling on WWOZ every Saturday morning from 7-8 a.m., and you can also listen online to recent episodes. Starting this month, WWOZ’s nationally-syndicated one-hour program New Orleans All The Way Live has been renamed and re-imagined in a great new form, with a new name - New Orleans Calling.

I Hear You Knockin by Jeff Hannusch