A soulful melody in New Orleans & me

Music has always been a soothing balm for my head and heart, going back to some of my earliest childhood memories, listening to Billy Joel, The Beatles, and John Denver on my parents’ old stereo or driving somewhere in the car with my Dad.

I soon formed my very own taste in music, making mix tapes from radio recordings of Toto, The Cars, Chicago, and other ’80s bands while taking piano lessons for ten years, starting at the age of 5. Again, I have my parents to thank for introducing me to a lifelong avocation.

I clearly remember how proud I was buying my FIRST cassette tape with my OWN money, Kilroy Was Here by Styx (hey, I lived in a small coal region town with a homogeneous radio-spin of selected music). My parents bought me my first guitar at age 14, a Fender Squire Bullet. I learned some familiar riffs by bands like AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath, R.E.M., but never practiced enough to play the damn thing well enough.

I sold my Fender in college and bought a bass guitar, which I thought would be easier to learn (and I was listening to a lot of Jane’s Addiction at the time and wanted to learn the cool-as-shit bass line to “Mountain Song.”). I did indeed learn “Mountain Song,” “3 Days” by Jane’s, and a few other songs over several months. But with no one to play along with, practicing soon became tedious and boring. So, you guessed it, I sold the bass.

I found an old acoustic guitar an ex-girlfriend had given me (sitting in my parents basement) at some point near the end of college. I started strumming it more and more, and then a friend sat down with me and taught me some basic guitar theory. Once I discovered you could print out tabs and chords on the Internet, the world of music slowly opened up to me in a whole new way.

I soon learned that acoustic guitar was my instrument of choice, and not long ago purchased a Martin that simply sings–several years after my ex-wife slammed a door on my old acoustic, leaving a gaping hole where the onboard electronics used to reside (there’s a metaphor here, I know, but I’ll avoid it). I’ve also graduated to a much more eclectic taste in music, including Uncle Tupelo/Wilco, Neutral Milk Hotel, Okkervil River, Bright Eyes, Ryan Adams, and too many more.

Throughout 33 years of life, love, daughters, divorce, working, not working, hospitalizations, meds upon meds, and a desire for something tangible, music may have saved my soul.

The excerpt below comes from a NYTimes.com piece wonderfully written by David Carr. Thanks, Mr. Carr, for evoking the memories written above.

“There are five of us left,” said Marguerite Smith, who was playing her Ovation Celebrity guitar in the gloom outside Johnny White’s Sports Bar here. It was nearly midnight and she said she was sure there were five remaining New Orleans musical holdouts. Almost sure, anyway.

“Jake, Casey, Grandpa - he plays the blues like you read about - Jacob and…” Ms. Smith paused, moving from foot to foot, her battery-powered sandals lighting up with each shuffle as she tried to remember. It was about the only light on Bourbon Street.

“And Robin, that little dude who plays the harmonica,” she finally concluded.

Playing on the corner of Bourbon and Orleans Streets in the French Quarter, in front of a bar that never closes - Johnny White’s stayed open during the last hurricane and will stay open during the next - seems a forlorn act, although a noble one. Drunks and friendlies lumber up out of the darkness requesting Lynyrd Skynyrd songs, but Ms. White plays what she chooses. “I’m playing just for me tonight,” she explained.

The police cruised by and whooped their siren, but lamely, as if to say they knew that neither she nor the hardies who keep this bar open will move. Not now. They are kindred, lonely spirits, ghosts conjuring a Bourbon Street that seems, for the moment, bygone.

Michael Mosner, an Airborne Ranger who said he had come down from New Jersey to help and had previously served in Somalia, was one of the ghosts. “Do you want a beer, sweetheart?” he asked Ms. White. “I’d do anything to hear you sing.” She smiled a little. “I love playing right now,” she said as Mr. Mosner walked into the bar. The pay is no good, she said, “but the benefits are wonderful.”

She had no amp, no backing band. There was only the persistent darkness in the French Quarter and a beer, which Mr. Mosner returned with.

She sang and he joined in, on key and in tempo, an old song by the Guess Who, “No Sugar Tonight/New Mother Nature.”

“It’s the new Mother Nature taking over,” they sang together, leaning into the chorus. “She’s gettin’ us all. She’s gettin’ us all.”