New Orleans Biographies

‘I Don’t Need To Be A Millionaire.’ Notes On The Life Of Anthony ‘Tuba Fats’ Lacen

Notes On The Life Of Anthony ‘Tuba Fats’ Lacen (photo: The Daily Spectrum)

Back in the eighties you could regularly find Anthony ‘Tuba Fats’ Lacen performing live at Jackson Square in New Orleans’ French Quarter. He was already famous as a founding member of Dirty Dozen Brass Band but he still kept it real on the streets by playing for tips. Continue Reading

RIP: Rest In Peace

Rest In Peace: Gert Town Native Tami Lynn aka Gloria Brown

Publicity photo of Gert Town Native Tami Lynn aka Gloria Brown

New Orleans native Tami Lynn née Gloria Brown is dead at 78 years of age. I wrote a feature on her recently for my New Orleans Album of the Week series.

“Do you remember your first love affair?”

Tami Lynn née Gloria Brown whispers on Introduction To A Love Affair, the first cut off her debut LP Love Is Here and Now You’re Gone.

It’s heart-wrenching.

Tami Lynn grew up in the hard-scrabble Gert Town section of New Orleans 16th Ward. To this day there are parts of the neighborhood that have dirt streets and houses without indoor plumbing. more

New Orleans Biographies

‘They Caught The Devil And Put Him In Jail In Eudora Arkansas’: Notes On The Life Of Tony Joe White

They Caught The Devil And Put Him In Jail In Eudora Arkansas: Notes On The Life Of Tony Joe White

Tony Joe White grew up on a 40 acre farm outside a small town in northern Louisiana near the Arkansas border. How small? “Goodwill had three stores, a cotton gin, a pool hall, and a church,” he would state in a sixties newspaper interview.

The Mississippi River was a one mile walk to the east. Continue Reading