Contraflow.htm

For the next couple of weeks, Armand dropped everything else to record his first rap song performance. He and Edward played the production back and forth, refining the single until they were satisfied.

At this time, there wasn't even a hint of a hurricane on the horizon.

By the end of August, "Contraflow" was ready for radio.

Ironically, it was aired for the very first time by DJ Roger on WWOZ Radio in New Orleans within the last half hour of his show on Saturday, August 27th, the night before Hurricane Katrina made landfall.

After the storm hit, Armand and Edward were reticent to play the song anymore. But as time has passed, they keep receiving more and more requests for "Contraflow" from folks who got a kick out of the song and now even get a few goosebumps from its uncanny timing.

You can now order a custom CD-R copy of the single, "CONTRAFLOW" from info@PattyLeeRecords.com for $3.00 + $2.00 s&h per CD.

Critical review: "Whatever possessed the two of you to do that?" -- Mrs. Rap

TIMES PICAYUNE (New Orleans)
Tuesday, February 21, 2006

The King of Carnival

"YOU CAN MAKE IT IF YOU TRY"

by Angus Lind

"That's an old Gene Allison song," the pianist tells his happy-hour audience at the Carousel Lounge at the Hotel Monteleone as he finishes singing "You Can Make it if You Try."

Recorded by just about everybody from Joe South, Solomon Burke and Roland Stone to Junior Parker and The Rolling Stones, that's pretty much the theme song for a lot of victims of Katrina, and it's no different for the legendary Al "Carnival Time" Johnson, the guy sitting at the keyboard.

Johnson lost his home on Tennessee Street in the Lower 9th Ward and everything in it, including his music, trumpet and memorabilia. He's living in Houston now, and he says he cries every time he goes back to his neighborhood.

Johnson was back in New Orleans last week to participate in the Krewe du Vieux festivities. As 2005's reigning monarch, he was feted at the irreverent krewe's salute to its aging past rulers and its welcome to this year's king, environmentalist Walter Williams, of "Mr. Bill" fame on "Saturday Night Live."

The soft-spoken Johnson, now 66, was with Armand "Sizzlin' " St. Martin, who plays pretty doggone good rollicking New Orleans rock 'n' roll himself.
Johnson played and sang some Fats Domino, some Hank Williams, some Art Neville and of course, the song. To be seated just a few feet away and listen to him sing those words that define Mardi Gras, the ones he composed in 1959, was, well, beyond awesome:

The Green Room is smoking, and the Plaza burning down
Throw my baby out the window, let the joint burn down
All because it's Carnival Time, ooooohhh it's Carnival Time!
Oh, well it's Carnival Time, and everybody's having fun.

The Green Room and the Plaza were Claiborne Avenue area "joints," as Johnson calls them, where black revelers celebrated Mardi Gras. The producer of his record wanted him to change those names to Bourbon Street "joints," but Johnson, who was just 19 when he wrote the song, didn't know Bourbon Street nightclubs and held firm.

St. Martin was sitting with me and my wife because we have a connection. His brother, Dr. Edward St. Martin, is my doctor, and they had collaborated on a highly unlikely undertaking, the recording of a rap song written by Dr. Ed named "Contraflow."

"He called me out of the blue in July and said, 'Armand, I've written a rap song,' " St. Martin said. "That was very un-Ed-like. But it was wonderful, a project we could do together. I set up the tracks and I, well, I rapped it."

The artists are identified as "Dr. Rap and the Sound Surgeon."
"WWOZ played it the Saturday night before the storm," he said. "Who knew?"

We got a plan
Called contraflow
But if one man's contra
Then the flow won't go.

Armand evacuated to Houston, Ed to Atlanta.
"He kind of wanted to squelch it," Armand said, as his brother was worried about people's sensitivities over the devastation. So what happened? "We started getting requests for the song. That's New Orleans."

At the break, Al Johnson joined us at our table. He was dressed musician-chic, with a Carnival baseball cap and a never-ending smile. He had no discernible wrinkles in his face and he was sitting right next to me.

Now, I have interviewed Muhammad Ali one-on-one, so I know what it is to be in total awe. But this guy, well, arguably he wrote the most famous song in all of Carnival history. And he is talking to me and asking me how I did during the hurricane. He lost everything, but he's asking me about my situation and sympathizing. "He's as considerate a person as you'll ever meet," St. Martin would tell me later.

If you wanted to debate the most famous song thing, you could. But I'd narrow it down to four: The Hawkettes' "Mardi Gras Mambo," and Professor Longhair's daily double of "Go to the Mardi Gras" and "Big Chief." And obviously "Carnival Time."

"He embodies Mardi Gras," St. Martin said. "He's a New Orleans music hero."
So the story goes, it took Johnson some time to get the song where he wanted it, and when it was finally recorded in 1960, it was overshadowed by Jesse Hill's classic, "Ooh-Pooh-Pah-Doo." A year later when he was in the Army, it took off.

I asked Al if he was ever worried about the song's future. He shook his head. "I knew it was a hit as soon as I wrote it," he said. He spent years fighting for the rights to his song and the royalties he deserved, finally got some relief, but the battle goes on.

Eleven years Johnson's junior, St. Martin's songs, such as "Be Your Own Parade" and "St. Expedite," are influenced by Allen Toussaint, Fats, Dr. John and Mr. Carnival Time himself. One critic said his boogie-woogie piano style was "reminiscent of the maniac from Ferriday." That would be Jerry Lee Lewis.

Quite a few years back, St. Martin and his wife, Patty Lee, got involved with the cemetery theft issue, when stolen New Orleans artifacts were being sold in L.A. That led to their later involvement with the Friends of New Orleans Cemeteries effort to build a New Orleans Musicians Tomb and the producing of their "Dying to Get In" benefits for that cause.
Johnson played at the benefits, as did St. Martin, which led to their friendship.

The St. Martins were the producer-hosts for a gala at Blaine Kern's Mardi Gras World in Algiers on June 20, to celebrate Johnson's 66th birthday and recognize his contribution to Carnival.

Subsequently, he and St. Martin have written a song, "You'd Have to Be Crazy to Miss Mardi Gras," which has yet to be recorded.

"I just love Mardi Gras," St. Martin said, "and I got to thinking about all those people who leave town for it. Al came on over, and I asked him if it had any appeal to him. He contributed a new melody and beat, and it really came together after that."

This is my city
With the Carnival beat
These are my people
We're out on the street
This is the holiday we all wait for
You'd have to be crazy to miss Mardi Gras!

"I hear a certain piano lick and a siren, and all of a sudden I know it's not a fire -- it's a parade coming," St. Martin said. "When I'm anywhere, I talk about New Orleans and Mardi Gras. We're just rebuilding our lives and reassembling New Orleans life. The people who don't get it, well, they just don't get it."

Oh, well it's Carnival Time, and everybody's having fun.
. . . . . . .

This CD dedicated to Celeste St. Martin

THIS PAGE IS A WORK IN PROGRESS. STAY TUNED.

c 2005 Patty Lee Records

HOME