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Listening to these tracks brings up a lot of memories about
the source of the lyrics of these early songs
Most of them come from the fact that when I returned to Mobile
after several years of living and playing in New Orleans
I had started writing songs
New Orleans will do that to you

Though my first recordings were done in Mobile
the songs that I carried into the
studio had their origins in New Orleans
When I landed there in 1968 I was just a year behind
being a Jesuit alter boy
I was still a virgin and I wanted
not to be either of those things anymore

So to borrow from a recent song title by Mack McNally,
Blame it on New Orleans
Sounds fair, I do

New Orleans to all of us who grew up on the Gulf Coast
is a place where, if you had any eccentricities
And you weren't thinking the way other people in the South were
in those days
New Orleans was the place to be
It had made its mark on me long before I even picked up a guitar
in my freshman year in college
I had family roots that ran deep from Pascagoula to Gulf Port
to New Orleans to Mobile

So when I left there and returned to Mobile to continue playing
clubs for a living,
I was armed with old childhood memories and a fresh
French Quartered venture that I had turned into lyrics and songs
that wound up being the material that interested Milton and Travis
and when I got back to Mobile
And I think these early recordings clearly show my evolution as a
performer and a song writer

You start emulating someone, like I did Gordan Lightfoot
and then you open up to other inspiring singers and songwriters
Who's music was the sound of the 60's
Dylan, Tim Harden, Bobby Charles from Abbeyville,
Alan Toussaint from New Orleans,
Judy Collins, Joan Baez and Fred Neil down in Miami
They were now the roadsigns on my song line

All those wonderful adventures I had in New Orleans as a 20-year-old
became my musical roots
Yeah, blame it on New Orleans I say
I'm not sure New Orleans wants to take the blame
Many of the ingredients in that big pot of musical gumbo
I was cooking up would eventually be served up

In 2011 I was given the unique honour
of being the Jazz Fest poster boy
in a painting that depicted my busking days
on the corner of Royal and Charter streets
When I saw the painting for the first time
I thought it pretty much summed up things because
From 1967 through 2011 and still to this day
New Orleans has had the most effect on me
as a songwriter, performer and novelist as any place
I ever lived or travelled to during my time on this planet

Oh with maybe the exception of that week I spent
in Timbuktu and in Mali in Bamako with the Bucktooth Brothers
exploring the musical culture of West Africa
And someone says, What about Key West?
That's a whole 'nother story
We'll get to that one later
But right now, here's another story that was simmering in my pot
for a longtime and finally is getting served up on Buried Treasure
This is called Rickety Lane

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