When New Orleans Suspects agreed to give the crowd at this year’s 16th-annual Bayou Rendezvous a history lesson in the music of their namesake home, they drafted the Bonerama horns, flutist Kofi Burbridge and the ivory-tickling John “Papa” Gros to give them enough manpower to accomplish their monumental task. With hundreds of years and dozens of genres to choose from, the Suspects whittled down the set list down to a series of unforgettable classics by everyone from Fats Domino to The Meters. New Orleans Suspects’ entire set at this annual event on May 4th at NOLA’s Howlin’ Wolf was a master class in the music of the Big Easy. It was a wild and wonderful show and, best of all, the whole evening served as a fundraiser for the New Orleans Musicians Relief Clinic which helps the city’s legion of players stay healthy and jamming.
The walk down musical memory lane began with “Blackbird Special” by the Dirty Dozen Brass Band, followed by a raucous “Hey Hey (Indians Coming)” by The Wild Tchoupitoulas, a move clearly designed to get the rowdy audience whipped up even further. The Suspects clearly wanted to live up to their mission statement for the show when they fired off three classics from ages past like “Rockin Pneumonia” by Huey ‘Piano’ Smith, “I’m Walkin” by Fats Domino, “Iko-Iko” by The Dixie Cups. From there, he Suspects took us on a walk down “Cabbage Alley” by The Meters before sharing “Such A Night” by Dr. John and “Yellow Moon” by The Neville Brothers.
Choosing songs to close the show was likely a very difficult endeavor but the funky po’ boy sandwich of “Big Chief > Ooh Poo Pah Doo > Big Chief ” by the one-two punch of legendary artists, Professor Longhair and Wilson Pickett, hit the spot and left the crowd cheering and begging for more.
You can click each song title to check out the tunes or watch a few of our favorites below. Before you do that, though, if you have a few bucks to spare and are looking for a good cause you should look no further than the New Orleans Musicians Relief Clinic. They truly are a boon to the music community in one of the most important cities in the scene. You can donate HERE then check out these clips and get funky!
New Orleans Suspects – “Iko Iko”
New Orleans Suspects – “I’m Walkin'”
New Orleans Suspects – “Cabbage Alley”
New Orleans Suspects – “Yellow Moon-Big Chief-Ooh Poo Pah Doo”