Shake Your Hips: Louisiana Blues

Although Louisiana is most known musically for Cajun, zydeco, and, of course, jazz, its rich blues tradition often goes unnoticed, or worse, is ignored.  Shake Your Hips: Louisiana Blues is the first comprehensive museum exhibit that tells the complex story of Louisiana blues and sets it in the larger context of the American music tradition.

The many forms of Louisiana blues have been shaped by and reflect the state’s geography, history, and regional differences in culture.  Blues from New Orleans has been and continues to be influenced by the city’s ultra-rich jazz scene, while blues from southwest Louisiana gains influence from both zydeco and Cajun music styles.  And Baton Rouge is one of the unsung American centers for blues music.

Shake Your Hips: Louisiana Blues includes never-before-seen artifacts, multi-media displays, and new interviews with Louisiana blues greats, in the process finally giving due to another great Louisiana music tradition.

Image: Irma Thomas, Times-Picayune, 1990. Courtesy of Capital City Press/Georges Media Group.