The Hills are Alive
Inside the creative hyperactivity of St. Francisville's music scene
A bear of a man who blows a thunderous harmonica in The Delta Drifters, Joe Roppolo finds time in between the St. Francisville-based group and the hard labor of tending to Ins ‘n Outs Nursery, which he co-owns with his wife Nancy, to handcraft didgeridoos and paint intricate mandala designs on round stones.
“I don’t know what it is,” said Roppolo, when I asked him to explain St. Francisville’s musical hyperactivity. “I like to attribute it to the river, and the highway.”
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There are many towns located up and down US 61, the Blues Highway, but few percolate with the artistic and musical intensity of St. Francisville. This settlement of 1,600 souls churns out surpassingly talented singers, players, songwriters, and artists at a rate that would be the envy of much larger communities.
The epicenter of this ongoing musical and artistic conversation lies in a dirt and gravel parking lot near the downtown business district’s only stoplight. Squatting in the front half of the parking lot is Birdman Coffee, Art & Music, owned by Lynn Wood, an eternally cheerful, rosy-cheeked artist and budding acoustic bass player. Her sister, Robin Marshall, established the Magnolia Café—“The Mag” in local parlance—at the rear of the same lot.
Summer evenings on The Mag’s screened-in dining porch are sacred to locals; that’s when Marshall books an impressive range of local, regional, and even national talent. Such premier acts as Dave Alvin (The Blasters), Alejandro Escovedo, Dale Watson, and Eilen Jewell have in the past performed on the porch, along with regional luminaries including The Subdudes, Yvette Landry, and blues legend Henry Gray. The last Friday night of each month is reserved for The Delta Drifters, the bluesy sextet that has held down this house residency for the past fifteen years.
The Mag is in its second incarnation, the original restaurant having burned in 2003. Prior to the conflagration, the restaurant had already established itself as the locus of the town’s musical life. Marshall and her husband at the time founded the business in 1983, shortly after they moved to St. Francisville.
Over time, the business morphed into a café and a place for locals to hear live music. On Friday nights during those early days, a group of musicians aspirationally entitled “The House Band” took up residence. Nancy Roppolo and Gordon Graham—two current members of the Delta Drifters—recall those Friday evening sets. “I don’t think we ever practiced together. We’d just show up on Friday and start playing in the back room,” Roppolo remembered with a laugh. Graham corroborates this account: “We never practiced, and we played mostly covers. The same people would come out every Friday to hear the same songs, and they loved it. We had a blast.”
If The Mag is the hot zone for live music in St. Francisville, then Birdman Coffee is the incubator within which both aspiring and accomplished musicians come together to learn to write songs and create music together in a supportive environment. Apart from its primary function as the clearinghouse for morning banter and gossip over coffee and breakfast, Birdman has emerged as the de facto music school in town as well as the likeliest spot to find a jam session. Local musicians, Adrian Percy, Joe and Nancy Roppolo, Gordon Graham, and Arnold Cardon are regulars in these sessions, and they are often joined by visiting musicians from other cities and states. The Fugitive Poets, a roots-inspired group, emerged from the musical ferment of Wood’s coffeehouse jams. Now based in Baton Rouge, the Poets have performed on NPR, as well as in clubs and festivals from Texas to Tennessee.
"If you play music, the Birdman is the place to meet other musicians, join in a jam, or just listen to some really creative talent. If you want first rate live music, you go to The Mag.”
—Adrian Percy
In 2001, Wood opened her coffee shop in the building that’s now the Magnolia Café, and Birdman was born. (The shop moved to its current location in 2009.) The name is derived from the elaborate wood carvings of birds crafted by her father that, for years, Wood offered for sale in the coffee house. Almost immediately, in collaboration with her sister Robin, Wood began fostering the development of an enhanced art and music culture in the town.
But it is Wood’s establishment of the Songbird Music School that has perhaps made the most substantial impact on the community. In the wake of budget cuts to music and art programs in the state’s schools, Wood has stepped into the breach by making opportunities available to children and adults to learn and create music. Birdman Coffee thus does double duty as a music conservatory. “It is hard to put into words the contribution of Lynn Wood to the culture of St. Francisville—it’s incredible,” says Nancy Roppolo. “People from all over are just drawn to that. They made it happen here.”
On a July afternoon at Birdman, David Hinson and Luke Ash, two music teachers from Baton Rouge, sat at a table in the Birdman brainstorming ideas for a song that the young students would write together as the culminating experience of the weeklong Songbird Music School. They worked out the chorus: “Tell us from your point of view/How the magic napkin came to you.” The young students tossed in additional lyric suggestions. “These are the kinds of opportunities that kids just aren’t getting in schools anymore, and it’s so important,” said Wood. “Music is such a stimulus for brain development and activity.”
Songbird also offers a session for adults. Each student writes a song of his or her own, with input and support from the group. The group then also composes a song together. This year, the first Songbird Songwriters CD—a collection of originals from workshops over the years—was recorded and will be on sale in the coming months.
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“Robin and Lynn are the heart of music culture in St. Francisville. If you play music, the Birdman is the place to meet other musicians, join in a jam, or just listen to some really creative talent,” said Adrian Percy. “If you want first rate live music, you go to The Mag.”
Meet the musicians
Led by guitarist Gordon Graham, the Delta Drifters pump out an eclectic mixture of blues and rock, undergirded by the band’s superb musicianship and easy familiarity with the audience—many of whom have been coming to The Mag for years to the band’s last Friday of the month gig.
Born and raised in New Orleans, Graham drifted to California, where for eleven years he honed his chops playing blues. “I was so up to my neck in blues, that’s all I wanted to listen to. I started a band in L.A. called Blues Solution. We were really fortunate because we got to play behind a lot of the blues guys that came into town. We backed everyone from Big Joe Turner to Pee Wee Crayton to Big Mama Thornton—we got to learn all of their songs.”
Returning to New Orleans, Graham worked for a film company specializing in documentaries and commercials. He then relocated to St. Francisville in 1991, where he opened his woodworking shop on Commerce Street. Though Graham is a master woodworker, music is his preoccupation. His guitar phrasing is tasteful, spare, and clean, reflecting the influence of the blues greats he backed during his club days in Los Angeles.
If St. Francisville has a “Queen of the Blues,” it’s Nancy Roppolo. A St. Francisville native and singer for the Drifters, Roppolo’s prowess stemmed from Sundays spent in church. “I grew up in the Baptist Church, and that’s where I got my musical foundation. My mom was the pianist. We were there Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night—and my favorite thing was the music. I started singing as early as I can remember.”
Roppolo was also introduced to the blues at a young age by Scott Dunbar, a blues musician from nearby Deer Park, Mississippi, who played frequently throughout the region. “Blues is so close to gospel, and there’s such a fine line between Baptist gospel music—it’s the gospel music that’s closest to blues and country music,” said Roppolo.
When Roppolo steps to the mic, anticipation runs through the room. Her voice is full-throated and resonant, especially on the bluesier numbers the band specializes in. In her lower register, she is evocative of contemporary blues artist Beth Hart. But country is her default vernacular. “My original stuff is country—but I’d be hard-pressed to put a label on what kind of musician I am.”
On a weekend night in early August at The Mag, with every table occupied, Arnold Cardon and his band were running through a set that included a daunting triplet of pieces by Stevie Ray Vaughan, Jeff Beck, and Jimi Hendrix. Few performers can walk that musical tightrope without a slip, but Cardon’s fingers blazed up and down the fretboard. His dark hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and he wore blue jeans, a black shirt and boots. He had the swagger of a rock and roll vaquero, helped along by his Latin good looks.
Cardon, a native of Las Cruces, New Mexico, is a comparatively recent transplant to St. Francisville, and one of the top tier guitarists in the nation, having played with Ivan Neville, Norman Brown, and Jeff Beck’s guitarist, Jennifer Batten. He also contributed one of his original songs to the tribute album Paul McCartney made for his wife, Linda, after her death from cancer.
“I’m kind of unique as a guitarist, and as a musician,” said Cardon. “I had this Spanish Latino influence in the music of my region—the mariachi, the songs that come from Mexico—rancheros, romanticos—that Spanish style you don’t get everywhere. There were bands that were playing [those styles of] music where I grew up—tejano, banda—so I had all these influences. Then I’m going home to my room and jamming to Van Halen. And I’m learning blues. So I was learning all of these different musical styles and a little jazz theory, and Afro-Cuban beats—at home playing heavy metal, when out playing all these other forms.”
“No matter your level of expertise, something has been created here where everybody is welcome. Everyone gets to sit down and jam—when you do that, you’re learning, and opening up new friendships. This blew me away.”
—Arnold Cardon
Cardon’s fluency in diverse musical styles has been the key to his success as a professional musician. “As a teacher, I tell my students that the more you take in—even if it’s not something you’re interested in—learn it, and it makes the other stuff better in your choices of chords, creativity, and your vocabulary. It prepares you for situations you might not anticipate, like being a studio musician.”
Now the next generation is on the rise. Eighteen-year-old Avery Landrum has already developed an impressive résumé: she recently placed third in the 3rd Street Songwriters competition in Baton Rouge and has a debut album coming soon. She plays regularly at Café Petra; her precocious flair for painting vivid emotional landscapes with her voice and her lyrics reminds a listening diner of PJ Harvey.
Trey Pendley, a recent arrival from Toad Suck (really), Arkansas, blew into town last January to participate in singer-songwriter Verlon Thompson’s songwriting workshop. “Trey reminds me of a young Chris Stapleton, or Colter Wall,” said Nancy Roppolo. “But he’s got his own thing going on, so it’s hard to pin him down to being like anyone in particular. Musically, for a youngster he knows exactly who he is.” Pendley and his new wife, Lexi (granddaughter of Robin Marshall), met in Verlon Thompson’s songwriting workshop. They’ve since melded their lives and their voices, performing locally as well as in Arkansas.
“No matter your level of expertise, something has been created here where everybody is welcome,” said Cardon. “Everyone gets to sit down and jam—when you do that, you’re learning, and opening up new friendships. This blew me away.”
5687 Commerce Street
St. Francisville, La.
facebook.com/Birdman-Coffee-Art-Music
5689 Commerce Street
St. Francisville, La.