Photographer Leon Morris has been coming to Jazz Fest from Australia for 22 years.

In that time he’s met a bunch of people and taken a bunch of photos. He’s assembled a few hundred of his best shots into a coffee table book that’s a homage to New Orleans and he’s come up with an imaginative title for it – Homage: New Orleans. Leon’s book starts with words of encouragement from Dr. John that Leon lives by, and which we joyfully appropriated for this show – “follow your heart or you’re fu__ked. (As a testament to the power of the written word and the apparent inconsequential power of speech, we’re allowed to say anything we liked on the podcast, but iTunes – and Facebook after somebody complains which they inevitably do – pull your stuff down if you use curse words in print.) 

Chris Bradford looks like a million bucks but feels like a little less. She woke up one morning with a hemorrhaged vocal cord which not only sidelined her singing but required her to be absolutely silent for a month. The resident doctors on Happy Hour review Chris’s strange case and link it to her 6 month stint in Beijing where she wore a mask constantly to allow her to simply breathe in the smog that is so visible it literally blocks out the sun. Chris is most definitely back – in body, mind, spirit, and song. She gives us a first listen to a brand new song in it’s very first rough demo.

Andrew Duhon plays a new song off his forthcoming album, I Hemorrhaged a Vocal Cord. That’s just a working title. See what you think of this song and whether it ought to be included in the final lineup. Andrew’s taking votes. Or is that “notes?”

Happy Hour Producer Graham daPonte makes a rare appearance on this Happy Hour with a sneak peek inside the life of a death row trial attorney and the strange management style of the guy who could simultaneously save you from lethal injection and kill you with his violent temper.

This show also contains an update on the romantic adventures of our two guests on the previous week’s show, Mr and Mrs Frank Scurlock. Little did we know that the title of the show would be a prophesy. This is one of the greatest New Orleans’ barroom Happy Hour stories of all time.

Pictures at Wayfare by Alison Moon.