Bayou underground tracing the mythical roots of American popular music

257 Pages·2010·3.99 MB·English

by  Thompson, Dave

Tracing the mythical roots

of American popular music

DAVE THOMPSON
BAYOU
UNDERGROUND

BAYOU
Tracing the Mythical Roots
of American Popular Music
UNDERGROUND
DAVE THOMPSON
ECW Press
Copyright © Dave Thompson, 2010
Published by ECW Press, 2120Queen Street East, Suite 200,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada m4e 1e2
416.694.3348/ [email protected]
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system,
or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the copyright
owners and ECW Press.
library and archives canada cataloguing in publication
Thompson, Dave, 1960Jan.3-
Bayou underground / Dave Thompson.
isbn 978-1-55022-962-2
1. Music—Gulf Coast (U.S.)—History. 2. Popular music—United
States—History.
I. Title.
ml200.t469 2010 780.976 c2010-901374-3
Editor: Jen Hale
Text design: Tania Craan
Cover design: David Gee
Cover images: © AVTG (swamp); © Sandra O’Claire (piano)
All photos and illustrations are from the author’s private collection
Typesetting: Mary Bowness
Printing: Thomson-Shore 1 2 3 4 5
This book is printed on paper that is 30%recycled / post-consumer waste product.
printed and bound in the united states
Louisiana . . . exudes a simultaneously attractive and
repulsive exoticism, not least for outsiders too lazy to learn
the difference between Cajun and Creole or how to pro-
nounce New Orleans correctly. An exoticism definitely
exists, but not in the muddled, commercial, and mythical
vision of corruption, drugs, Voodoo, poly-sexuality,
bourbon, gambling, degeneracy, and disguise; wherein
addled quasi-Klansmen and octoroons, knee-deep in head-
less chickens and armed to the teeth, ride through swamps
and housing projects on giant crawfish, speaking in
tongues, blasting trumpets, leaping off French Quarter bal-
conies, eating their young and selling their souls. All while
covered in powdered sugar.
D. M. Edwards, Popmatters.com

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION 1
TRACK ONE: “Promised Land” by Elvis Presley 11
TRACK TWO: “Baron Samedi” by 10cc 27
TRACK THREE: “The Witch Queen of New Orleans” by Redbone 37
TRACK FOUR: “Highway 61 Revisited” by Bob Dylan 49
TRACK FIVE: “Big Bad Moon” by Joe Satriani 63
TRACK SIX: “Amos Moses” by the Sensational Alex Harvey Band 75
TRACK SEVEN: “I Walk on Gilded Splinters” by Dr. John 91
TRACK EIGHT: “Who Do You Love” by Juicy Lucy 107
TRACK NINE: “Chateau Lafite ’59 Boogie” by Foghat 117
TRACK TEN: “Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence Clearwater Revival 125
TRACK ELEVEN: “Staggerlee” by Prince Buster 135
TRACK TWELVE: “Louisiana 1927” by Marcia Ball 149
TRACK THIRTEEN: “Sneaking Sally through the Alley” by Robert Palmer 165
TRACK FOURTEEN: “The House of the Rising Sun” by the Animals 185
TRACK FIFTEEN: “The Carny” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds 193
TRACK SIXTEEN: “Black Juju” by Alice Cooper 205
TRACK SEVENTEEN: “The Ripper” by Judas Priest 213
TRACK EIGHTEEN: “Bad Things” by Jace Everett 223
EPILOGUE 239
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 244
BIBLIOGRAPHY 245
-
INTRODUCTION
A stranger stopped in front of an old house to ask direc-
tions. The decrepit octogenarian on the tumbledown
porch replied, “Well, you carry on down this road until
you come to . . . ,” and he named a local landmark, lost
in a fire in 1953. “You turn left, and cross the field until
you reach . . . ,” and he named another landmark,
washed away in the flood of 1927. “And then you just
keep on going until you get to . . .” and he named a
third, one that even local lore could only place in an
approximate vicinity. “And it’ll be right across from
there.”
“Hell,” said the stranger. “If I knew where all those
places were, I wouldn’t be needing directions.”
And the old fellow replied, “Well, if you need direc-
tions, maybe you don’t have any business going there.”
— Louisiana fable
It’s not true that the people around here are unfriendly, that they
don’t take kindly to strangers, that they are silent and secretive, espe-
cially with outsiders. But it is true that they like to keep themselves
to themselves, and if a visitor finds himself on the wrong end of a
local joke . . . “well, maybe if you don’t know it’s a joke, you have no
business listening to what the people are saying in the first place.”
I’ve been hearing those words, and appreciating that sentiment,
for more than two decades. It was 1986when I first visited Louisiana,
a getaway that lasted a weekend or so, but which was destined to be
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