Nashville – Alynda Lee Segarra has become something of a poster child for the roots music renaissance growing out of New Orleans. She has collaborated with many of the local musicians and attested to the supportive artistic community within the city hosts. Her band, Hurray for the Riff Raff, is pumping fresh folk blood into Crescent City, a town long known for its Cajun, jazz, and blues traditions.
Their new album, Small Town Heroes, swings between roots genres. They don’t shy away from Carter style country on the album’s opener “Blue Ridge Mountain.” Nor do they waver on “New San Francisco Bay Blues,” a song that boldly reinterprets the multi-talented Jesse Fuller’s late ‘60s hit. Small Town Heroes pays tribute to this music of a bygone time, but it still sounds fresh and clear.
The band isn’t messing around with distortion or warped synths to get the old-school feeling across. Their artist integrity stands up on its own. Segarra is someone who has ingested so much roots music that she now bleeds folk themes, pipe organs, and lonely guitar solos. Yet her music is still decidedly modern.
On “The Body Electric,” Segarra addresses a culture that too often makes light of violence and abused women. She asks, perhaps rhetorically, “Tell me, what’s a man with a rifle in his hand gonna do for a world that’s dying slow?” A thumping bass drum gives urgency to the message. The full band crashes in as Segarra sings the chorus, “Bullets are flying. Bullets are flying.” The song retreats to a single electric guitar during verses that puts Segarra’s lyrics and voice in the spotlight.
Throughout the album, her voice and the accompanying music have a feeling of spontaneity. It doesn’t sound as though the tracks were spliced and overdubbed during the mixing process. This spontaneous quality isn’t as overt as it is on say, a Dylan album, but like Dylan and the great folk singers of yore, Segarra also comes with a true message.
She sings in homage to her adopted city of New Orleans, the side of the city that tourists don’t see. She sings of dive bars and dangerous neighborhoods, rambling men and beaches. But most of all, she sings of missing New Orleans. In St. Roch Blues, she pleads, “Don’t go back to New Orleans,” as though she isn’t there herself. In “Crash On The Highway,” she’s unable to get home from being on the road: “Germany is cold and mean. I wanna get home to New Orleans.” Segarra rarely seems to be home.
“Home” has always been an elusive concept for this sojourner. She left home at a young age and spent her youth hopping trains. A musician’s life isn’t too far from that of a freight hopper. But Segarra has said that she likes this life on the move. Her lifestyle must be what fuels her songwriting material. It’s music that you can keep unpacking. It is rich with minute observations and large-scale social issues. It’s music to travel with and carry you home.
For more on Hurray For The Riff Raff go HERE and HERE.
Thumbnail Photo By Joshua Shoemaker
Caroline McDonald
After dabbling in many parts of the music industry—recording studios, PR, management, labels, publishing—I’m expanding into music journalism because I’m yet to find anything more rewarding that finding and sharing new music.
A longtime sucker for girls with guitars, my musical taste unabashedly follows the songwriting lineage of Dolly Parton and includes Patty Griffin, Gillian Welch, and Neko Case. But not to pigeonhole myself, my music love is big love that stretches from R.L. Burnside to Animal Collective to Lord Huron.
I’ve recently moved home to Nashville after living in Boston and Big Sur for several years. I’d forgotten how music pours onto the streets ten hours a day, seven days a week. I’m honored to share the creative explosion happening here. If your band is in the area or of the area, please reach out!
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