NEW ORLEANS (Reuters) – Bob Dylan treated thousands of sun-baked fans to a rocking set of classics like “All Along the Watchtower” and “Like a Rolling Stone” to open New Orleans’ first post-Katrina music festival, one the city hopes will kick-start its recovery.
The New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival started on Friday with a gravel-voiced Dylan leading his sextet on organ through reworked versions of the tunes that defined his early career.
Other big names like New Orleans’ own Dr. John as well as Ani DiFranco and local jazz, blues and gospel groups shifted the two-weekend festival into gear at a racetrack on the north side of town that was underwater eight months ago.
After the hurricane, which killed 1,300 people along the U.S. Gulf Coast and devastated much of New Orleans, organizers worried the festival would have to be scaled back or canceled.
Even now, the city’s population is less than half of what it was before the hurricane and flooding it triggered. The city’s pre-Katrina population was about 470,000.
“With Dylan, and to have this happen again means everything to us,” Julie Becker, a native New Orleanian, said while waiting for an encore from the folk-rock pioneer and his band in the blazing afternoon sun.
“It is what this city is about, it’s what carries the city, it’s the soul of the city,” said Becker, 42.
More than 4,000 musicians are slated to perform at this year’s Jazz Fest, which runs through Sunday, then continues the following weekend. On tap are Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, the Dave Matthews Band, and New Orleans luminaries like Allen Toussaint, Irma Thomas, and the Meters. ﾠﾠContinued…
By: Jeffrey Jones, Reuters 2006
