Album Notes

As a child of the '70's in New Orleans, Burke Ingraffia was introduced at a very early age to the funky street beats and second-line rhythms of the Mardi Gras Indians, The Meters, and Professor Longhair as well as the more historical Dixieland sounds of that same city where American music was born.

Later in life, the words began to matter. The singer/songwriters of the East Coast like David Wilcox and John Gorka fueled Burke's fire, songs of life and love with lyrics that free the mind.

THE CD

Independence, Louisiana. Is it a place, or does it mean something else? We live in a state where we vote for the eternal right to hunt and fish, where the distinction between leisure and laziness requires clarification, and the oral traditions still breathe out loud. Were it not for television, the rest of America would have such little bearing on our lives. We are a mix of cultures and of styles. That is what this CD represents. It features 20 musicians from the state of Louisiana performing my songs in various styles, including jazz, pop, funk, and folk and incorporating many of the images and rhythms that I have absorbed during my stay at this particular time in history on this particular part of the planet.

In the summer of 2002 I moved from New Orleans to live with my grandfather on his retired dairy farm lying on the border of Tickfaw and Independence, Louisiana. Paw Paw was 96 at the time and still managed to get some sort of work done around the place every day. He will be 99 this year and has become for me both the bridge to the common sense of the past and the personification of Independence. Aside from him, however, out there on the sidelines of modern society it's like living in one's own personal Faulkner novel, with Yokapatawphna County being replaced by Tangipahoa Parish - all the old men, thieves and scoundrels, Snopeses, and colorful characters. The Town of Independence still retains its strong Italian identity, and although it is as sleepy as a 99 year-old man napping, there are still many good families keeping the place alive.