Mention New Orleans in the first line of your song, and we're all listening. And in addition to all the songs specifically mentioning New Orleans or Mardi Gras in their titles or lyrics, there are dozens more exhorting us to come on and let the good times roll.

Back in 1947, New Orleans singer Roy Brown launched his career with the uncannily prophetic 'Good Rockin' Tonight.' Driven by boogie piano, Roy's own version rolled more than it rocked, but cover versions by Wynonie Harris (in 1948) and then Elvis Presley (in 1955) turned the song into one of the cornerstones of the rock 'n' roll repertoire. The exultant sound of Shirley and Lee's 'Let the Good Times Roll' sets the room alight even before they start singing. Their anthem was a pivotal record at that epochal moment in 1956 when rhythm and blues electrified white teenage America under its new name: rock 'n' roll.

Long before Phil Spector created his notorious Wall of Sound at Gold Star Studio in Los Angeles, a small team of Crescent City alchemists concocted a gigantic roar from a horn section punching over the drummer's back beat, and although others tried to imitate it elsewhere, if you really wanted that sound, you had to go to New Orleans to get it

More than any other American city, New Orleans acts as the point of musical exchange with the rest of the world. Having imported rhythms, melodies and song structures from Africa and Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, New Orleans sent its unique potions back out to the rest of the world. The sounds of New Orleans are heard in Gypsy bands in the Balkans, Klezmer groups in Poland and Kaseko marching bands in Surinam.

Charlie Gillett