This was my first time attending this parade. We saw it where it formed in Louis Armstrong Park. The actual parade route in the French Quarter was a mob scene.

That was brilliant, although the Louis Armstrong impression shows that you can do good impressions and still be tone deaf.

man dig anything robert johnson, but critic tha I am, as much as John Hammond Jr. is mediocre cool, he's like the cracker equiv, of Louis Armstrong-style uncle-tommin'!He da Vanilla Ice of Blues....


Reminds me of Zappa....
A foolish young man
From a middle class fam'ly
Started singin' the blues
'Cause he thought it was manly
Now he talks like the Kingfish
("Saffiiiee!")
From Amos 'n Andy
("Holy mack'l dere...Holy mack'l
dere!")
He tells you that chitlins...
Well, they taste just like candy
He thinks that he's got
De whole thang down
From the Nivea Lotion
To de Royal Crown

Do you know what you are?
You are what you is
You is what you am
(A cow don't make ham...)
You ain't what you're not
So see what you got
You are what you is
An' that's all it 'tis

white folks...hrummPPPH!?

Édith Piaf (December 19, 1915 – October 11, 1963) was one of France's most loved singers, who became a national icon. Her music reflected her tragic life, with her specialty being the poignant ballad presented with a heartbreaking voice.

"La vie en rose" is her signature song, in French it means "life through rose-coloured glasses", or literally, "life in pink". The song has become a standard and has been performed by many artists like Louis Armstrong, Plácido Domingo, Ella Fitzgerald. It was given a Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1998.

- More @ Wikipedia

Very funny. So true.

"Louis Armstrong." Hehe.

Looks like stepn'fetchit, in the begginning there-early hollowwood had few black stars of any acclaim...establiment kept it that way-Why I personally can't stand Louis Armstrong, for all his tommin'-sure he was great, but let himself be used.

"Billie Holiday, also known as "Lady Day" is probably one of the best known female jazz vocalists. She reigned during the 1940's performing with such greats as Louis Armstrong. Holiday is best known for her love songs which she innovated into the jazz world.

What a lot of people do not know about Billie Holiday, was that she used her music to speak out against social injustice and raise consciousness. Holiday was openly communist and when she was only twenty four years old, poet Lewis Allen reluctantly offered his song "Strange Fruit" for Holiday to record. The song provided vivid imagery about the horrors of the lynching of Southern Blacks at a time when racism was very prevalent.

When Holiday first sang the song "she could not comprehend the metamorphic presentations of anything other than women in love or spurned by lovers", (Davis. p185). This quote may make Holiday sound ignorant, but at the time the idea of a woman, especially a Black woman, making an anti racist statement was almost unheard of. Holiday soon embraced the song.

Lady Day had said that the lyrics reminded her of her own father's death (Clarence Holiday had inhaled poisonous gases after serving his country in World War I and was left to die in a hospital after being neglected by racist doctors). "Strange Fruit" ignited a spark that made Holiday want to speak out against the racism that killed her father (Davis, 1998).

Because feminism incorporates the fight against racism, I believe that Billie Holiday was a feminist before her time. "Strange Fruit" was sung by Holiday at the height of the Harlem Renaissance and not long after women had received the right to vote. The rights of African Americans and an awareness of their culture was just beginning to take shape. Women's rights were also still in the making. Holiday, who was mainly known for her love songs, boldly stepped out of a stereotyped mold and sang a song that stood defined the injustices performed against her people.

She took a poem and transformed it into a protest song, which she never sang the same twice. Compared to Black female vocalists of today, like Erykah Badu and Tracy Chapman who have mostly social and political songs, one protest song may not seem like much, but "Strange Fruit" became Billie Holiday's signature song. She took the song and personally made it her own."

- http://www.newpaltz.edu/wmnstudies/3women/billie.html