{"id":6690,"date":"2019-02-15T03:12:08","date_gmt":"2019-02-15T03:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/?p=6690"},"modified":"2019-02-15T03:12:08","modified_gmt":"2019-02-15T03:12:08","slug":"in-new-orleans-lois-andrews-nelson-rules-over-krewedelusion-and-the-universe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/2019\/02\/15\/in-new-orleans-lois-andrews-nelson-rules-over-krewedelusion-and-the-universe\/","title":{"rendered":"In New Orleans, Lois Andrews Nelson Rules Over krewedelusion (and the Universe)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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photo by Eric Waters\/courtesy of krewedelusion<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

On Saturday, Feb. 16, in New Orleans, when Lois Andrews Nelson rides as Queen in the tenth annual Carnival season parade of krewedelusion<\/em><\/a>, she\u2019ll wear a purple, green and gold satin baby doll<\/a> dress, representing one time-honored local tradition she helped revive. On hand will be brass-band musicians and, as her honor guard, the Treme Sidewalk Steppers<\/a> Social Aid & Pleasure Club, drawn from a second-line parade community in which she is one of the few female grand marshals. She\u2019ll be surrounded by the denizens of an indigenous culture she was both born into and begat.<\/p>\n

Nelson, who is 66, is the daughter of singer\/songwriter Jessie Hill, best known for his 1960 hit \u201cOoh Poo Pa Do”; granddaughter of guitarist Walter Nelson, who played with an early hero of New Orleans clarinet, Alphonse Picou; and niece of guitarists Walter \u201cPapoose\u201d Nelson Jr., who played with Fats Domino, and Lawrence \u201cPrince La La\u201d Nelson, best-known for the song, \u201cYou Put the Hurt on Me.\u201d Among her children are musicians named Andrews who notably extend and expand local legacies\u2014James, Buster and Troy \u201cTrombone Shorty\u201d Andrews.<\/p>\n

A collection of new and old marching groups, krewedelusion\u00a0<\/em>gathers each year with a heady\u00a0mission\u2014\u201cto save the Universe, beginning at its center: New Orleans\u201d\u2014according to its website. Nelson was born and raised, and raised her own children, in the Sixth Ward, which, culturally speaking, was long the center of the universe for New Orleans.<\/p>\n

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The concept behind krewedelusion (<\/em>which likes its name rendered in lowercase with “delusion” in italics)\u00a0builds on the idea of Carnival royalty, who \u00a0are usually appointed to govern the pomp and circumstance of parades and balls. But as co-founder L.J. Goldstein explained, this krewe \u201cputs its appointed Ruler in charge of governing the entire universe.\u201d Goldstein, a photographer-turned-lawyerwho moved from Philadelphia to New Orleans in 1993, sees the krewe as a natural extension of a sentiment he absorbed in his adopted city\u2014\u201cthat through the act of parading we can save the world, make the world a better place.\u201d Nelson, he said, \u201cembodies the best New Orleans traditions and, by passing them on, is a generational bridge.\u201d<\/p>\n

The krewe’s first Ruler was the actor, filmmaker and commentator Harry Shearer, who offered it the motto “organization is delusion,” based on both his experience parading in 2010 and his view of political reality. The crew is political beyond even the satire of Carnival season. It uses \u201cmule-free, fuel-free\u201d hand-operated floats, for instance, and encourages its members to give handmade, do-it-yourself throws crafted from naturally abundant or recycled materials.\u00a0But it is also a focal point for what has always been inspiring about New Orleans, what connects those whose love of the city is born-and-bred, such as Nelson, and those, like Goldstein and Shearer, who were drawn to New Orleans, embraced the place, and never let go.<\/p>\n

The picture above of Nelson\u2014taken by the great New Orleans photographer Eric Waters<\/a> and familiar to most locals\u2014shows her dancing atop the casket at the 1995 funeral of her son Darnell \u201cD\u2019Boy,\u201d who played trombone. Nelson won\u2019t talk about all that\u2014the pain still lingers. But on the phone, she gladly regaled me with story after story of nearly everything else\u2014of a world in which New Orleans culture truly was the center of the universe.<\/p>\n

She recalled how \u201cPapa Picou,\u201d as she called Alphonse, would sit at the foot of her bed and play his clarinet, and how, later in her life, when baby Troy wouldn\u2019t stop crying, she\u2019d put a radio next to his crib to calm him down. She recalled the Sixth Ward, before a large section was ripped out to create Armstrong Park, when it was defined by \u201chouses and barrooms and grocery stores, and the families that went back and forth between these places, everybody knowing everybody else.\u201d She knows that such a neighborhood no longer exists as it was. \u201cTo be real with it,\u201d she said, \u201cTroy is the very last musician to come out of Trem\u00e9.\u201d For Goldstein, Nelson\u2019s turn as krewedelusion<\/em>‘s ruler is, at some level, \u201cboth an honoring and a remembrance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nelson has paraded long enough to know that Saturday, when rides as queen\u2014\u201c\u201cMother of Music & Captain of New Orleans,\u201d as krewe captain Oscar Diggs put it\u2014will be a special moment. \u201cLord, when I wake up that morning and get myself together I\u2019m going to have goosebumps and feathers in my stomach because it\u2019s such as good feeling,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you\u2019ve never been, you never know. Once you\u2019re in, you know how good it will feel.\u201d<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re in New Orleans and you go to the parade, be sure to hit krewedelusion<\/em>\u2019s Bedlam Ball immediately following, at the Trem\u00e9\u2019s Candle Light Lounge, with music from James Andrews and many others.<\/p>\n

If you want more background to this year\u2019s event, read this piece<\/a> in the New Orleans Advocate, by the city\u2019s best journalist, Katy Reckdahl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Saturday, Feb. 16, in New Orleans, when Lois Andrews Nelson rides as Queen in the tenth annual Carnival season parade of krewedelusion, she\u2019ll wear a purple, green and gold satin baby doll dress, representing one time-honored local tradition she helped revive. On hand will be brass-band musicians and, as her honor guard, the Treme … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “In New Orleans, Lois Andrews Nelson Rules Over krewedelusion (and the Universe)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[482,481,61],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6690"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6690"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6690\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6701,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6690\/revisions\/6701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/larryblumenfeld.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}