Classic Songs 6-Louisiana 1927

Randy Newman performing his song Louisiana 1927 – one of my favourite songs, with particular resonance post Hurricane Katrina. It seems apposite also given the floods in Iowa at the present time.

I first heard this performed by Aaron Neville, and I still think his performance is excellent.

SInce Katrina this song has grown considerably in stature, though to Adam’s mind it has always been an extremely evocative and heartfelt piece.

This song was written in the 1970s and to my mind fully deserves to be called a classic.

This article extract from the International Herald Tribune discusses the song also:-

In the nearly three years since the levees failed during Hurricane Katrina, you haven’t had to wait very long at a Louisiana festival or nightclub before a singer croons, “What has happened down here is the winds have changed.” That’s the opening line of “Louisiana 1927,” which has become the state’s unofficial anthem in the wake of the 2005 tragedy. Written by Randy Newman in the mid-1970s about a flood that covered a good deal of Mississippi, Arkansas and Louisiana half a century earlier, the song climaxes with its plaintive, singalong chorus, “Loo-eez-ee-ann-a, they’re tryin’ to wash us away.”

The song’s lament of being battered once by nature and again by a callous government had resonated with flood-ravaged audiences from New Orleans to Lake Charles well before 2005. Then Katrina came, and Newman seemed downright clairvoyant.

“For a long time after Katrina,” said Marcia Ball, a Louisiana-born blues singer, “there just wasn’t a dry eye in the house when I did that song.” While Katrina inspired many songs, she said, this one became the anthem because it has “one of those simple, irresistible Randy Newman melodies and lyrics that were so real. In truth, so many people did get washed away.”

“Louisiana 1927″ is more than an anthem, however; it’s also a modern-day folk song that gains new lyrics as singers adapt it to new circumstances. Ball tweaked the lyrics for her 1997 version, which she will perform on Saturday at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival.

The same article notes this also:-

Aaron Neville, who was born and raised in New Orleans, heard about the song from his frequent duet partner Linda Ronstadt, a longtime friend of Newman’s. He recorded the tune for his 1991 album, “Warm Your Heart” (A&M), and his approach was anything but understated.

Backed by an orchestra and a gospel choir, he sang with all the drama of someone standing in water up to his thighs. Because he has a much better vocal instrument than Newman, Neville could exploit the melodic rise of “Louisiana, Louisiana” in the chorus and the melodic collapse of “They’re tryin’ to wash us away.” And because he was closely identified with New Orleans in a way that Newman never was, he gave that chorus a first-person authenticity.

He predicts that “Louisiana 1927″ will be the emotional peak of the Neville Brothers’ festival-closing set on Sunday.

Gradually Neville’s version of the song became a standard among the black residents of New Orleans. In 1996 Bo Dollis & the Wild Magnolias recorded “Louisiana 1927″ for their album “1313 Hoodoo Street.” The Wild Magnolias, who perform Sunday at Jazzfest, are Mardi Gras Indians, that New Orleans tradition of blacks who dress in elaborate costumes of feathers and beads.

The article notes how as the song has become adopted by more and more singers some have changed the words, especially the artiste called Boutte:-

But the song’s most dramatic recasting was by Boutte during his set at Jazzfest in 2006. He sang Newman’s lyrics straight through once, then changed things around. The line “Clouds roll in from the north” became “Clouds rolled in from the Gulf.” The line “President Coolidge come down in a railroad train/with a little fat man with a notepad in his hand” became “President Bush flew over in an aeroplane/with about 12 fat men with double martinis in their hands.”

To Adam’s mind the people of New Orleans were betrayed by the Bush administration and it’s sheer incompetence in this disaster.