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The Unsung Pioneer Of Louisiana Swamp-Pop

By docjones January 8, 2013Business, City News, Jazz, Music, R&B, Sports, Tech

Southern Louisiana in the early 1960s was a hotbed of musical creativity among youngsters who'd been raised listening to French-language country music and Fats Domino. They combined those — and other — influences to make what's now called "swamp pop." Joe Barry was a pioneer in this area who should have been much bigger. Joseph Barrios Jr. was born in the aptly named town of Cut Off, La., in 1939, and almost immediately started fooling around with a guitar that was in the house. At 15, he heard a Ray Charles song, "Come Back Baby," and decided he'd found his hero, so he formed a band called the Dukes and started playing bars. When local hero Joe Carl stole the band from under him in 1960, Barrios, who by now was using the name Joe Barry, formed another one, the Del-Phis. Hearing that there was a studio in Ville Platte that would record them, they headed up there. The next thing they knew, they'd recorded two songs and were getting local airplay. Floyd Soileau, whose studio they'd used, had been recording Cajun and Cajun country records for a decade, but also had a rock label, Jin, reserved for people like Joe Barry. "Heartbroken Love" got a lot of airplay, but didn't sell a lot of records, so Barry had to be very persuasive before Soileau agreed to let him make a second one. For this, they went to a bigger studio: Cosimo Matassa's in New Orleans. Barry had been perfecting a song he'd written — "I Got a Feeling," a kind of tribute to Ray Charles — and he put everything he had into it. They needed another side, though, so their bassist suggested an old Les Paul and Mary Ford song, which they banged out quickly. Floyd Soileau knew he had a hit, so he called on a friend of his, Huey Meaux, who lived in the East Texas rice-growing town of Winnie and had had some luck leasing records to national labels, notably Mercury. By early 1961, "I'm a Fool to Care" was working its way from a regional to a national phenomenon on Mercury's Smash subsidiary, and Joe Barry and the Vikings, his latest band, were on the road. That summer, he released a follow-up. "Teardrops in My Heart" didn't do as well, and the two that followed didn't even do that well. Joe Barry didn't care: He was busy living his legend, destroying hotel rooms, shooting televisions or throwing them in the pool. By the end of 1961, Floyd Soileau wanted nothing to do with him. Huey Meaux stuck with him, though, recording him in New Orleans with the Vikings augmented by Mac Rebennack (a.k.a. Dr. John) on guitar or piano. On one occasion, Meaux released a Joe Barry record under the name "Roosevelt Jones," a common pseudonym for a white artist trying to sell to black audiences. It was Barry's ultimate Ray Charles tribute, but it, too, went nowhere. By 1964, though, Meaux had bailed Barry out of jail one time too many, and he also had a fight with Cosimo Matassa and stopped using his studio. Joe Barry went back to Cut Off and worked in the oil fields, trying to lose his drug and alcohol problems. A couple of comeback attempts failed, and eventually he found religion and became a preacher. By 1977, music was the last thing on Joe Barry's mind, but a phone call from Huey Meaux changed that. Meaux had had his own troubles, and had come back with a left-field hit written by an elderly friend of his — and sung half in Spanish and half in English by Freddy Fender, another long-time veteran of the Texas-Louisiana bar scene. The label, Dot Records, thought Meaux was a genius and asked him if he knew any other artists like that. "I always look for a voice," Meaux told me at the time. "If I can find the voice, the song's no problem." Dot eagerly signed Barry after Meaux twisted his arm some to get him into the studio, and the album that resulted is a forgotten gem. Right as Joe Barry's comeback album was released, the record company went into turmoil and fell apart. Meaux bought the tapes back and put it out himself, but he had no better luck. Barry went back to his ministry, and his health began to fail. He recorded a gospel album, and then a pop album for an independent label that finally came out in 2003, but by then he was far too sick to promote it. He died in Cut Off, where his story began, in August 2004.Copyright 2013 National Public Radio. To see more, visit http://www.npr.org/.

Where Y’Eat: A Holiday Diet of Nostalgia

By docjones December 20, 2012Business, City News, Jazz, Music, R&B, Sports, Tech

While new restaurants and trends abound, New Orleans expats home for the holidays are heading straight for their old favorites. Don't even try to get in their way. Listen For those interested in the latest from the realm of food and restaurants, these have been exciting times around New Orleans. There have been so many new eateries, new flavors and hot trends turning up, it’s been hard just to keep track of them, never mind try them all. But for another sort of avid eater out there, none of this new stuff matters. And yet, this is the time when many of them still have their hands full in pursuit of their own particular food passions.This other type of eater is the nostalgic New Orleanian, especially those who grew up here but have since left. They may be chasing their dreams in New York or L.A. or in Texas — their new homes where they’re building their futures. But their past is the key to their cravings and when they come back to New Orleans, they chase that past with a purpose.With Christmas around the corner there is a bumper crop of them around town right now. Just look around. They don’t have guidebooks, they might have cameras, and they definitely have a zeal about them as they reconvene over their tables and plates. You see them at the oyster bar, at the burger joint, at the po-boy shop, at the neighborhood restaurant. And when they squeeze in a visit during warmer weather, you certainly see them in line at the sno-ball stand.These are the foods they were weaned on, and the spots that got them through high school, college and assorted other greatest years of their lives. Maybe it’s tempting to tease them a bit. Life marches on, after all, even New Orleans life. That seafood platter you had back in 1983 is not the end-all and be-all of local cuisine. That new chef everyone’s talking about, that semi-secret pop-up restaurant that makes such good whatever it is they make, that new place where the food is sourced so responsibility that the animals actually thank you for eating them — that’s closer to the popular conversation of New Orleans food today. But still, I feel I can relate to the nostalgic eater. After all, I grew up in Rhode Island, and whenever I return home I indulge in a steady diet of memories and cravings — a tour of grinders, chowder, a very specific cruller from a certain donut shop and a strange, borderline-scary hot dog that is never seen outside of the nation’s smallest state.Such is the lot of the nostalgic eater. Young chefs may be doing amazing new things, and exotic, ethnically authentic foodways may be getting more attention. They don’t care. They have a list and only a certain number of meals they can manage before they leave town again. They want a shrimp po-boy with ketchup all over it, a Bud’s Broiler No. 3, a bowl of Dooky Chase Creole gumbo, a bushel of Rocky & Carlo’s macaroni and cheese and an Angelo Brocato’s cannoli, and you had better not get in their way. This is their time.It’s also the time when all of us count our blessings, and if you ever think you might take New Orleans food for granted, just get lunch with a visiting expat and I’m sure you’ll feel your gratitude renewed with each bite.