Salem Willows is a wonderful small old fashioned amusement park in Salem, MA that was foudned in 1866. It has both old style mechanical rides and the new electronic ones. There are a lot of willow trees and a small beach. I try to visit it whenver I am in Salem.
I recently went to a wonderful Mardi Gras Ball in Rhode Island ball on the Saturday before with three of the top Cajun/Zydeco bands in the country. We were lucky to have them so close to Boston. Here are few photos of the bands.
First, the Pine Leaf Boys played. They are a favorite of mine and I have a bunch of their CDs. I first saw then at the 2006 French Quarter Festival andthey played a role in the HBO series, Treme. See below for the 2006 New Orleans photo.
More recenlty I spent a very plesant Saturday morning at the Cajun jam and the store owed by Marc and Anne Savoy, the parents of Wilson Savoy, the Pine Leaf band leader. He was there. See my post - Taking in Cajun Music in the Lafayette Louisiana Area. I got a chance to talk briefly to Wilson after the show thanked him for both the band's performance and that saturday morning.
Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys played next. I saw Steve and his Cajun band at the Rock n Bowl in 2006 and I have “Bon Rêve,”, which was nominated for a Grammy in 2004 and few others. Here’s what Dr. Barry Ancelet, professor of folklore at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, has to say about Bon Rêve:
"It's the Sgt. Pepper's of Cajun music. It's so strong in so many areas: performance/musicianship, the poetry, the conception, the whole album working together as a sort of a thematic unit. It's an incredible effort. What's really remarkable is that they're sort of competing with themselves. They're competing with their own last effort, and that's got to be hard to do. And yet they keep pulling it off."
The closing group was C. J. Chenier, and The Red Hot Louisiana Band. I saw him in New Orleans in the late 80s. He is the son of zydeco legend Clifton Chenier. I have a lot of Clifton's music. He joined his father’s band in 1978 and inherited his father’s place in the band when his father passed in 1989. Then created his on sound with a stronger rock influence. He likes to keep his audiences happy and moving and that was the case on this occasion.
For those in the US and elsewhere who celebrate Thanksgiving today I hope you have a meaningful day with family and friends. Here are greetings from some wild turkeys who fare better today than their domestic relatives.
Here are photos from Crane's Beach in early Spring as we head into Winter. Looking forward to next Spring and walks on Crane's Beach.
Boston's MFA has a new wing devoted to American art which has also opened up room in the rest of the place for other art. Wing is a weird name for this addition as it is embedded in the foot print of the museum but a picture of glass and light as you can see below. Here are views of it and a few close ups of some of my favorite paintings. I have been taking close ups to record the brush techniques, especially those of Sargent.
Here is what has become one of my favorite places to eat in Boston’s South End, B&G Oysters. Growing up in New Orleans I always love a seafood place here is a great New England version. The picture is from their web site and the rest are mine. A greta place to go for music after dinner is the Beehive, just across the street as seen in the last pictures. They have good food too.
Salem is a very eclectic city with many interesting shops. I used to work there. One of the more usual is Harrison’s at 252 Essex St. next to my old barber shop. Here are some of the goods. As Yelp said, “They carry an armada of quirky, geeky items catering to just about every branch of geekdom.”
Here are some flowers and architecture that you often find in old New England. Here they are in Amherst MA.
Here are some more pictures of fall foliage in New England as a follow up to my post last week about the the small pond near my house.
