The Old Forge (Thursday 6th June 2019)

Gaillardia

L.
7.6.2019 (2125 hr)

Blip #2946 (#2696 + 250 archived blips taken 27.8.1960-18.3.2010)
Consecutive Blip #017
Blips/Extras In 2019 #123/265 + #050/100 Extras
Day #3360 (761 gaps from 26.3.2010)
LOTD #2090 (#1931 + 159 in archived blips)

Flora series
Old Forge series
Macro series

Taken with Panasonic/Leica DMC-LX100 M4/3 compact

The Woodland Garden (June 2019) (Flickr album)(Work in progress)

Lozarhythm Of The Day:
Dr John - Gris-Gris Gumbo Ya Ya (recorded 1967, Gold Star, Hollywood CA)
Dr John (vocals, keyboards, percussion) with Harold Battiste (bass, clarinet, percussion, arranger), Richard Washington (percussion), Bob West (bass), John Boudreaux (drums), Plas Johnson (saxophone), Lonnie Boulden (flute), Steve Mann (bottleneck guitar, banjo), Ernest McLean (guitar, mandolin), Mo Pedido (congas), Dave Dixon, Jessie Hill, Ronnie Barron (backing vocals, percussion), Joni Jonz, Prince Ella Johnson, Shirley Goodman, Sonny Ray Durden, Tami Lynn (backing vocals)
RIP Mac Rebennack (Dr John)(21 November 1940, New Orleans LA - 6 June 2019)
“When we started this whole Dr John thing we were trying to preserve the New Orleans voodoo scene which was called Gris-Gris… we were trying to preserve it. I had this whole album writ down. Either Sonny or Cher was cutting for Atlantic – it got done on their studio time. All of the guys on that record were from New Orleans. One thing about people from New Orleans, we know it’s better to hang together than to hang separated. I took a lot of sacred music, and asked some reverend mothers [Voodoo practitioners of New Orleans] if it was OK. I asked, if I didn’t sing the original spiritual lyrics to the songs, was it OK to do this record? And they told me ‘That’s OK’. But don’t do this, don’t do that.
“So it was easy: I was given a lot of instructions on certain things. But I was trying to help them in certain ways, too. When that record came out, they got me to front their [Voodoo] church and get it legalised with the state of Louisiana, so that when they heal people they wouldn’t go to jail. I gave the church to a guy called Noel, and he’s still got it rolling in South Louisiana. The spirit is strong. That music was important – they gave me so much so freely, that it was important for me to do something for them.
“They taught me how to cure people with plants, and what you look for in the earth. These days they call that homeopathical medications or whatever they calls it. In Louisiana this is part of Choctaw traditions, African traditions… It’s all in this little area between Louisiana and Mississippi – everything grows. I was always around so many blessed musicians… great guitar players, sax players, killer drummers. We did a whole voodoo show. We did what you would actually see [at a voodoo ceremony], but made it into showbusiness, which was taking what we used to do with minstrels and mixing it with stuff from the mardi gras Indians, like the fur suits I had. We had a guy that was a wild man for the Creole Wild West, way back in the game in the 1930s. I talked to the kids… they know about this stuff, but they don’t remember far back. But all of these people contributed something that made this music different, and we were trying to keep the spirit of all of that.” - Mac Rebennack

One year ago:
The Old Forge