Category: Music Memory

Jimmy Caskey’s lifelong fascination with recorded music

It’s a music memory brought to you by Confetti Park!

Jimmy Caskey lives in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he and his wife Jacques own and operate a beloved lunchtime restaurant called Jacquelyn’s Cafe. Jimmy has been playing guitar all his life, and has performed in several different bands around north Louisiana.

Whenever people go to Jacquelyn’s Cafe, in addition to enjoying the shrimp salad and Monte Cristo sandwiches, bowls of gumbo and red beans and rice, they’re getting a musical education (whether they know it or not!). Jim Caskey is the deejay, and he lovingly shares his large and eclectic recording collection with everyone who steps through the doors. He will talk music with anyone who is interested in learning about what they’re hearing.

Jimmy’s love for music is lifelong. In this music memory, Jimmy discusses discovering his parents’ turntable and records when he was small child:

“I was around 5 or 6 in Mississippi, I remember my folks had albums and a turntable. And I remember sitting there listening to the albums and was fascinated by music. And I’ve been fascinated ever since then by recorded music…..And when I was 13 I started playing guitar, and I don’t know why I can’t explain it, but I was always infected and amazed by music of all sorts. Except for heavy metal.”

Thank you, Jimmy, for sharing your childhood music memory with Confetti Park!
Thanksgiving playlists make beautiful music memories for Rich Collins

Rich Collins

It’s a childhood music memory from Rich Collins, a founder and front man for one of the most popular children’s music groups in the world, the Imagination Movers. Rich also has a burgeoning solo career, with a new album of songs geared toward adults. (Scroll down for music videos!)

In this music memory, Rich talks about the music he associates with large family gatherings at Thanksgiving:

“My family up in DC was large and we would all gather for all the major holidays, and the holiday that was at our house every year was Thanksgiving. And we had a very fun family, so basically the way every one of these gatherings ended was with all the tables and chairs being pushed aside, and we would put on records and start dancing.”

Rich talks about how his father curated the albums that became the basis for Thanksgiving memories: “The soundtrack to my youth, and to these parties, and to these great family memories, was the Beatles, Creedence, and Otis Redding.”

Today, the tradition lives on for Rich and his family.

“Every other year here in New Orleans (where I’ve been for 25 years), I host Thanksgiving. And I have a Pandora channel with those three artists on it and I put it on and it’s playing the whole time that I’m gathered with my sisters and my mom and the next generation…”

Thanks, Rich, for sharing this wonderful family tradition with Confetti Park. Listen to this extended interview with Rich Collins, all about the music of the Imagination Movers.
John Doheny recalls jamming cartoon theme songs as a kid

Saxophonist John Doheny at a Confetti Park recording session with Chuck Bee (L) and Roger Lewis (R).

In this episode of Confetti Park, we hear a childhood music memory from New Orleans-based saxophonist John Doheny.

John has a long career as a professional jazz musician, band leader, writer, and educator. Originally from the Pacific Northwest, he first started playing clarinet as a child and was part of youth orchestras from an early age.

John switched to saxophone as a teenager, and says he developed his chops playing six nights a week as a college student in Vancouver. He spent his twenties and thirties playing and recording with a slate of well-known pop and rhythm and blues artists such as the Coasters, the Platters, Bobby Curtola, Buddy Knox, the Temptations, Solomon Burke, Michael Buble, and Doug and the Slugs.

In 2003, John moved to New Orleans and enrolled in the graduate school at Tulane University. In addition to earning an MA in Musicology (with a concentration in Early New Orleans Jazz), he served as Professor of Practice in the music department and directed the student jazz band. He also served as band leader of the Professors of Pleasure, and has released several straight-ahead jazz recordings. (We are honored that John appears on a track with the Confetti Park Players—The Clapping Song.)

In this memory, John recalls how his mother made him practice every day, and how it led to a favorite jam.

“My mother said you have to practice for 30 minutes after school or no cartoons. And so I would be sitting there playing with the Klose book, and then the cartoons would come on, and then because I already had the horn in my hand, I taught myself how to play the Bugs Bunny theme song. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was teaching myself how to play what I hear, which is kind of what you want to do.”
Bruce Sunpie Barnes: The magic of my father’s music

In this episode of Confetti Park, we hear a childhood music memory from Bruce Sunpie Barnes, the talented and multifaceted blues harmonica player and zydeco accordionist from Louisiana.

In addition to leading the zydeco band the Louisiana Sunspots, Bruce has had a long career as a ranger and naturalist at the Jean Lafitte National Historical Park and Preserve in Louisiana. (He also had a career in the world of NFL football, playing with the Kansas City Chiefs!) And he’s the photographer and author of Talk That Music Talk. Read more about his biography at All Music.

Bruce’s music has always been a part of his life, and even as a naturalist, he found music an effective way to communicate about the culture and importance of the Louisiana environment. Bruce was one of the key producers on two-album compilation, the National Park Service: Songs of the Lower Mississippi Delta.

Here Bruce shares a special memory of his father, who was one of his most important influences.

“My earliest memory of anything to do with music was sitting on my father’s knee and listening to him play harmonica. He would work all day, and when he’d come home in the evening, I always wanted to hear him play his harmonica. And he’d play a song called “Coon ‘n the Hound” and make these barks like a dog…. and I was completely fascinated by it.

I would sit on his knee and he would play for all my brothers and sisters (a lot of them), but I would just sit and I would try to figure out where all that sound was coming from.

It was like magic. It was the first thing I ever associated with being magic.

I would always think about that when I would go to bed, ‘I can’t wait till I get old enough so I can make some magic.‘”
A childhood music memory from Ms. Chocolate about spirituals

Ms. Chocolate, also known as Gwen Williams, is a storyteller and a singer who grew up in Louisiana. Many of her favorite stories and songs she shares with children today are the true memories and gathered songs from her own childhood in rural parts of central Louisiana. Church, family, school, and life in the country are recurrent themes.

In this episode Ms. Chocolate shares about the music she sang as a little girl:

“The music I remember as a child were called spirituals. Now you don’t have too much of that today… I do a monologue of Harriet Tubman and spirituals of the Underground Railroad. So I teach children how slaves used music to communicate…….. ‘Swing Low Sweet Chariot,’ ‘He’s Got the Whole World In His Hands,’ ‘This Little Light of Mine’—these are spirituals. These are simple songs that have a really big meaning,” says Ms. Chocolate.

Ms. Chocolate lives in Picayune, Mississippi today. She left New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005. She tells stories all around the Gulf area. http://chocolatestoryteller.blogspot.com/
Music Memory from Daniele Spadavecchia

Daniele Spadavecchia. Photo courtesy of http://www.dsjazz.com/

In this episode of Confetti Park, we hear some memories of a musical childhood from New Orleans-based gypsy guitarist Daniele Spadavecchia, who grew up in Italy.

Daniele loves to play acoustic gypsy jazz guitar, and when he first came to New Orleans (around 2003) he hooked up with Tony Green, another musician who shares sensibility and appreciation of gypsy jazz, swing, Mediterranean Flamenco, and European ethnic music.

Daniele has performed at dozens of festivals and venues in Italy and the United States, especially around New Orleans and San Diego (where he lived after Hurricane Katrina for a time). Today, you can catch him at the Tasting Room on Magazine Street, where he has weekly gigs.

In this interview, Daniele describes his childhood as freewheeling and adventurous, and his parents—”an Italian version of hippies”—shared their musical tastes with Daniele and his brother.

“Of course as kids, we were always traveling with my parents, and we would always have a tape player in the car. We didn’t even have a working stereo in the car so we would carry this predecessor of a boom box. So we would play all these tapes. My mama would play some music, and she would play every kind of thing…. all these fantastic rock ‘n roll or prog rock bands or psychedelic rock. And that thing really twisted my brain, in a good way. It taught me freedom of expression and the beauty of music, the power of music.”

Daniele has recorded various gypsy jazz CDs and also plays on the Confetti Park Player’s children’s CD. he is the featured guitarist on the song “Buttermilk Drop.”

Listen to Daniele’s beautiful music:
Music Memory from Randy Guynes

Photo of Randy Guynes by Barbara Beaird Photography

Randy Guynes is a drummer and percussionist from Shreveport, Louisiana. He’s played in bands such as the Killer Bees, the Lightnin’ Bugs, and the Fiddlin’ Tim Trio.

In this episode of Confetti Park, Randy shares a few music memories from his childhood that show how powerful the influence of song can be. In one example, the great fun he shared with his sister while dancing the Twist was probably the first time he started thinking about playing music himself. “I think somehow it was on from there!” says Randy.

Songs shaped Randy and spurred him onward, and also created emotional experiences. In one humorous anecdote, Randy recalls how terrifying the new psychedelic sounds created by the Beatles were to his innocent ears.

Says Randy: “KEEL played some music at night, during the late night hours, that they didn’t play during the daytime. I remember hearing for the first time, ‘A Day in the Life,’ by the Beatles. And it just scared me. It was almost like having a nightmare…..I’d never heard anything like that before, in music. It was mind-blowing.”
Music Memory from Cameron Meshell

In this episode of Confetti Park, Shreveport native son Cameron Meshell shares a childhood music memory.

Cameron is a talented singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist who was born and raised in north Louisiana. Today, he and his family live in Los Angeles, but his roots in Shreveport are still strong (as are his ongoing partnerships with musical collaborators). Among Cameron’s various musical projects are Forever Like Red and Alarm Science.

Cameron plays drums, guitar, and piano, but it’s his beautiful and acrobatic singing that is so arresting. It’s no surprise that when Cameron thinks back on his earliest musical influences, he recalls another musician known for his amazing vocal pipes: Freddie Mercury of the band Queen.

Says Cameron: “My first musical memory that had an impact on me as an artist was of an album called Queen, self-titled. It was given to me by my uncle, when I was eleven years old. I just remember being so consumed by the album and that was the moment that made me want to be a singer.”
Music Memory from Foots Quinn

Foots Quinn plays some train songs

Terry “Foots” Quinn is a singer-songwriter from Bogalusa, Louisiana. Foots plays guitar and harmonica, and considers his biggest influences to be the Rolling Stones, Van Morrison, Allman Brothers, and rural blues and country players such as Jimmie Davis and Jimmie Rodgers. Foots is the nephew of an important pioneer of early jazz guitar named Snoozer Quinn.

Foots writes songs true to life growing up in the piney woods of Washington Parish. His descriptive lyrics capture the feelings, scenery and problems of small-town life, yet Foots always manages to bring a chuckle and point out the good things. He’s also a railroad historian and afficionado, and has a large repertoire of train songs.

Here he shares a music memory with Confetti Park:

“My memory from way back is of a little drive-in chili bun stand called Floyd’s—had curb service,” says Foots. “They were playing ‘Maybelline’ over the loud speaker system, by Chuck Berry. It introduced me to some very fine rock n roll!”
Music Memory from C.C. Adcock

C.C. Adcock. Photography by John Chiasson

In this episode of Confetti Park, we hear a childhood music memory from C.C. Adcock, Louisiana native and cultural champion, singer, songwriter, guitarist, and producer.

C.C. recalls the positive memories of neighbors who shared their music with him when he was just a kid, in endless front porch jam sessions, and how early on, he realized that musicians are nice people.

“When I was a child we were living in Baton Rouge for a while…there were these hippie people with long hair living across the street from us. And they used to pick guitars every afternoon on the front porch. I remember being fascinated by them, all being able to play guitars together. My parents would let me cross the street and go around there, and I’d strum my chords that I knew with them. They were really sweet. That’s also where I learned how nice and genuine and sweet musicians can be.”

C.C. leads the Lafayette Marquis and is a member of the swamp pop supergroup Lil’ Band O’ Gold. He’s performed with Bo Diddley, Buckwheat Zydeco, Paul “Lil’ Buck” Sinegal, and others. He’s also a notable Grammy-nominated record producer who has worked with a wide range of musicians, such as Robert Plant, Florence + The Machine, Nick Cave and Neko Case, Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys, Ani DiFranco, and Doyle Bramhall.

Check out C.C. Adcock’s sound from his self-titled album and with L’il Band of Gold.
Music Memory from Andrew Baham

Andrew Baham. Photo from http://www.andrewbahamonline.com/

In this episode of Confetti Park, we hear a childhood music memory from New Orleans-born trumpet player Andrew Baham.

Andrew has been playing the trumpet since the age of 11 years old. He studied at the New Orleans Center for Creative Arts and under the tutelage of players such as Ronald Benko, Clyde Kerr, Jr., and Nicholas Payton.

In this memory, Andrew reflects on his early exposure to some of the great players of early jazz, such as the Olympia Brass Band. Says Andrew: “As a young kid I had the privilege to watch some of the older guys, and one of my most fond memories is watching Papa and “Duke” Dejan play.”

Certainly, the early influence of that traditional brass sound shaped Andrews’s musical approach. Widely respected as a player, Andrew can be found performing with contemporary New Orleans bands such as Big Sam’s Funky Nation, Soul Rebels Brass Band, and Lil’ Stooges Brass Band. He has even performed with Mystikal and Mannie Fresh. But Andrew feels right at home among the old-timer players of traditional New Orleans jazz. Full Biography

Check out Andrew’s own “Andrew Baham Quintet” and visit Andrew’s SoundCloud channel to hear the diversity of sounds he creates. https://soundcloud.com/daphessah/sets
Music Memory from Doctor Sick

Doctor Sick. Image provided by Doctor Sick.

Doctor Sick, who might have once been called an itinerant musician, is today a fixture in the New Orleans music scene. A “musical jack of all trades,” Doctor Sick is a virtuoso musician who sings and plays stringed instruments of all kinds. He’s also a whimsical, colorful songwriter and a witty director and producer of burlesque and other theatrical novelty shows. These days, catch Doctor Sick around New Orleans in one of many diverse projects such as the Rotten Cores, the Salt Wives, Valparaiso Men’s Chorus, and numerous burlesque companies.

Adding to his illustrious resume, Doctor Sick also play kids music! He wrote songs and performed on the Austin, Texas-based Asylum Street Spankers’ children’s CD Mommy Says No!. And New Orleans’ own Confetti Park Players were delighted to have Doctor Sick as a featured artist on their first CD, We’re Going to Confetti Park! You can hear his mysterious musical saw and soulful fiddle playing on songs “Feufollet,” “Polly Wolly Wee,” “Watch Out for the Pirates,” and “Louis Lafitte, the Pirate King.”

In this music memory shared with Confetti Park, Doctor Sick shares how his parents recognized his talent early on, and set him on the path to music.

“I’ve been playing violin since I was four years old,” says Doctor Sick. “When I was very young I was taking lessons all the time. My parents made me, but I thank them for it today, because music is such an important part of my every day life.”

Doctor Sick describes a sweet memory of singing along while his grandmother played piano, when he was only two or three—they were jamming on the alphabet song.

“Before I even knew my ABCs I was trying to sing along,” he recalls. “It was the first time I ever jammed with anybody, where you’re listening and contributing and making the music with somebody else. And that’s why my parents got me into playing music, because they realized that I was going to be playing music for the rest of my life anyway.”