Preserving the Culture of New Orleans is Essential

“Do you know what it means to miss New Orleans," Louis Armstrong sang in the 1947 film “New Orleans." “I miss it, each night and day/The longer I stay away." The tune was actually written by two songwriters, Eddie DeLange and Louis Alter, who never lived in Louisiana. A hugely successful pop ditty, “Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans" was regarded by Big Easy natives as, well, a bit cheesy. Today, one year after Hurricane Katrina nearly drowned the city, it has become imbued with new meaning.

The song belongs to a musical sub-genre--practically a cannon--of mournful mash notes to the city. Others would include Fats Domino's “Walking to New Orleans," “It's Raining," by Irma Thomas," and “Louisiana" by Randy Newman. Even before Katrina hit, it was impossible to separate New Orleans from its rich, and utterly unique, cultural heritage: birthplace of jazz, the French Quarter, Creole cooking, second line funereal marches , Mardi Gras. Without the music or the gumbo there can be no New Orleans. So says Nick Spitzer, host of Public Radio's “American Routes" and a folklorist specializing in American music and cultures of the Gulf South. Spitzer recently spoke with NEWSWEEK's Brian Braiker about a regional culture that has proven difficult to wash away. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: What's happening in the New Orleans music scene?

Nick Spitzer: From the beginning I was arguing the importance of the return of music and musicians--and the whole holy trinity of New Orleans culture: music, food and the built environment, our architecture.

A year after the storm, are they coming back?

Is music fully back? No. This is a town of nightclubs and neon and lots of little hideaway spots where people play. It's still very much too dark around the city at night and there is nowhere near the offering of music there had been. That said, the big events--Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest--were two gigantic stepping stones that encouraged musicians to come back and be back to playing. Musicians, like everybody else, need a place to stay, but unlike other people they also need places to play. Having places to play means more of the city is in good repair and there's more people back here to be audiences.

You mention songs that take on new meaning. The one that really hit me was Randy Newman's “Louisiana."

It's interesting about that song: you can portray him as the Jewish Tin Pan Alley West humorous songwriter, but, it's made it here. It's been pulled in and made our own. And he has a new stripped-down version of it on the Nonesuch record - just him and the piano. It's in some ways more powerful.