Donald Harrison, Jr.
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUPROWELL: Hurricane Katrina and the flood that followed it affected everything in New Orleans. Will you talk about the extent of the impact the hurricane had on musicians and the music culture of New Orleans?
HARRISON: The culture of New Orleans is based upon the people of New Orleans. In fact, most of the people are not back in their homes because it was very detrimental to us. The culture feeds on the people. Before the Katrina, there were large crowds at traditional jazz parades. We hope in the aftermath of the hurricane this trend will maintain itself. A large amount of the people who are participants in traditional jazz parade may not have the money to fix their home or even a home to live in. These various elements have affected musicians in New Orleans. If you were a musician in New Orleans you now might be living in Houston, Atlanta, or Little Rock. Musicians would now find it difficult to make it in New Orleans because their remuneration is most often less than before than storm. The real tragedy at this point is musicians are not here to even play anymore, and that's a problem. In New Orleans all the people including musicians are just trying to get a place to stay.
ROWELL: You seem to emphasize "a place to stay." Why? How important is "a place to stay" to the survival of the culture and musical performance?
HARRISON: Well, when you realize that eighty percent of the city was destroyed from the levees breaking, and you pass miles and miles of flooded homes and no one living there. Then, after seeing all this you will truly see the extent of damage Katrina caused, and how long it is going to take to really bring the city back. Focus has not been placed upon the fact that we need contractors, and we need money to pay contractors to fix the homes. If you ask the people that were here before the storm most will tell you they want to come home. To fix a home it will cost you two hundred to three hundred thousands dollars. Most people didn't have enough insurance to cover the cost of rebuilding. In fact you will find a lot of insurance money went to mortgage companies because mortgage companies get paid first. There is also a misunderstanding that people in New Orleans didn't own their homes. This statement is not reality—many people did own their homes. [End Page 1295] They even had insurance, but for some the insurance company didn't pay. I have spoken with a lot of people that are trying to figure out how to raise the money to come home. The state is supposed to give people money to come home but it has not come through on a large scale. If it does come on a large scale then New Orleans people will come home. There are some instances of people working who have renting been an apartment and are now purchasing a new home, so they will have two expenses. Your expenses will double now if you move home.
ROWELL: You mention people not being there—in New Orleans. You are there. You are not a general or common musician, because you are a national and international figure, a distinguished artist. New Orleans has thousands of other kind of musicians. Long ago when I used visit the city, I thought that about three to five publishable or recordable musicians lived on every street in New Orleans and that performing music was a way of life or mode of existence in New Orleans. New Orleans is music, isn't it? How many musicians are there now in the city? Are there many who are native to New Orleans still performing there since Katrina?
HARRISON: There are some musicians that are still here. You don't have many musicians who are exclusively in New Orleans because there are not...
