“We’re gonna go back in the alley and play some low down blues,” Brown Sugar tells WWOZ listeners. She’s been sweet talking New Orleans that way for years.
New Orleans Features
New Orleans Past – Storyville
In the early part of the 20th century, many visitors came to New Orleans seeking the entertainments of “jolly good fellows.” According to the euphemisms of the times, such “fellows” were prostitutes. And passengers arriving at the Basin Street train station couldn’t help but fall into their arms.
Just south of the station, which is gone [...]
Stranger Than Fiction: New Orleans Offbeat History
Think of New Orleans and jazz and Mardi Gras come to mind. And then other things like voodoo and the infamous red light district, Storyville. But New Orleans’ history is full of odd footnotes. The first licensed pharmacy in the United States was opened in the French Quarter. And gambling owes a debt to the [...]
Louisiana Lingo: Say What? Where Y’at?
Where y’at? In New Orleans that’s the same as asking, “How are you doing?” It’s also the reason some people are described, affectionately though not always flatteringly, as “Y’ats.”
Anyone can be yatty in character or in speech. Simply put, in New Orleans, people have their own way of expressing themselves. Y’at words and accents are [...]
Grave Circumstances
Working in the cemeteries is rarely considered desirable work. But it is in New Orleans. Visitors to the city can’t seem to stay out of the Cities of the Dead. So there’s a peculiar niche for some of the people who practically live in them.
Robert Florence is like many new New Orleanians. He moved here [...]
Life in the Big Easy
One thing you should remember to do before coming to New Orleans: forget everything you know. Or at least most of it.