Blues  •  Louisiana Blues

Acoustic New Orleans Blues

Although New Orleans is generally thought of as more of a jazz and rhythm and blues town -- with its clubs and dance halls filled with professional bands and singers -- the streets of the Crescent City gave birth to a quite different strain of the music. The Acoustic New Orleans Blues style, therefore, embraces everything from itinerant street singers and guitarists to rag-tag "spasm" bands (themselves an offshoot of the jug band) to house frolic piano players. The music also reflects the tastes of the patrons on the street, including jazz, boogie woogie, ballads, rhythm & blues, and pop tunes, all of them interfacing with the most serious of blues.