The Wild Tchoupitoulas’ The Wild Tchoupitoulas: (33 1/3)

The Wild Tchoupitoulas is a definitive expression of the modern New Orleans sound. From "Hey Pocky A-Way" to "Big Chief Got a Golden Crown," the album draws on carnival traditions stretching back a century, adapting songs from the Mardi Gras Indians. Music chanted in the streets with tambourines and makeshift percussion is transformed throughout the album into electric rhythm and blues accented funk, calypso, and reggae. The album bridges not only genres but generations, linking the improvised flow from group leader George Landry, better known as Big Chief Jolly, to the stacked harmony vocals by his nephews Aaron, Art, Charles, and Cyril--the core members of the soon-to-be-formed Neville Brothers, playing together here for the first time. With production from Allen Toussaint and support from The Meters, the city's preeminent funk ensemble, The Wild Tchoupitoulas brings an all-star brigade, pressing these old anthems into new arrangements that have since become carnival standards. In the process, the album helped to establish the terms by which processional second-line music in New Orleans would be commercialized through the record industry and the tourist trade, setting into motion a process that has raised more questions than it has answered about autonomy, authenticity, and appropriation under the conditions of a new cultural economy.

Table of Contents:
Maps Introduction 1 Family 2 Tradition 3 Arrangement 4 Culture and Commerce Acknowledgements Notes on Sources

About the Author :
Bryan Wagner is Associate Professor of English and American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, USA. His books include Disturbing the Peace: Black Culture and the Police Power after Slavery (2009), The Tar Baby: A Global History (2017), and The Life and Legend of Bras-Coupé: The Fugitive Slave Who Fought the Law, Ruled the Swamp, Danced at Congo Square, Invented Jazz, and Died for Love (2019).

Review :
In his view, the Wild Tchoupitoulas is both a harbinger of that future and a symbol of the past that is long gone now. For a long essay/short book, [Bryan Wagner] does a great job, and he never forgets that the music and personalities that made it are what makes it the classic that it is. Bryan Wagner's truly enjoyable book is a fascinating trip into some of the history of the amazing city of New Orleans and the past and traditions of a section of the population who don't always get the attention they deserve. It is much more about tradition and history than it is about the album per se; and it's an all the better read as a result of that.