Louisiana Cultural Vistas and KnowLouisiana.org Spotlight La. Music

The Winter 2015-16 edition of Louisiana Cultural Vistas that debuted on December 1 was the first music-themed issue in the magazine’s 26-year history. We invite our readers to explore Louisiana’s unparalleled musical legacy online at KnowLouisiana.org where dozens of encyclopedic entries of musicians can be found, replete with audio recordings, interviews, film clips and other interactives. Visit our website and you will find:

• Biographies of such famous figures as classical composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk, jazz greats Kid Ory, Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Prima, zydeco legend Clifton Chenier, bluesman Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter, country crooner/governor Jimmie Davis, rappers Master P and Mystikal, and boogie-woogie pianists James Booker and Professor Longhair, to name but a few. Each of these scholarly-researched entries is accompanied by recordings of the musician’s songs.
• Interviews by Allison Miner, the former New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival promoter, with such luminaries as Gatemouth Brown and Queen Ida Guillory. Louisiana Cultural Vistas’ longtime music reviewer Ben Sandmel can be heard in conversation with Allen Toussaint and Brownie Ford.
• Audio files of such iconic Louisiana songs as “When the Saints Go Marching In,” “Jolie Blonde,” “Bamboula,” “Great Balls of Fire,” “You Are My Sunshine” and “J’ai  Ete au Bal.”
• Overviews of the state’s musical genres, including opera, classical, jazz, zydeco,country, black  and white gospel, brass band, Cajun, Isleño décimas, Mardi Gras Indian, blues, rhythm and blues, rock, rockabilly and rap, hip hop and bounce.
• Online features from Louisiana Cultural Vistas include an interview with Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Famer James Burton, a Shreveport guitarist who played with the likes of Elvis Presley and Rick Nelson; an interview with rising jazz artist Christian Scott; an analysis of Louisiana’s radio-listening habits by columnist Richard Campanella; a review of a new CD by the emerging Acadiana-based band Sweet Crude by Ben Sandmel; and a history of the German enclave of Roberts Cove in Acadia Parish.