Bassist about town and writer par excellence Spike Perkins will be adding his unique voice to TVD all week long.
Here’s part two of the story of Jerry Jumonville’s album, which was thought to have been lost in the flood that followed Katrina. A free download is also available at the end of the post.
In 2004, Sound Of New Orleans was still recording in the ADAT format, which records digital audio on Super VHS video tape. Most studios had gone to a direct to hard disk format by this time. As it turned out, the studio had taken 8 feet of water during the flood that followed Katrina, but our tapes were on a high shelf above the waterline. Gary Edwards had lost everything, and offered to sell us the tapes very reasonably. We went for it, not knowing if the recordings were viable or not.
Jerry Jumonville | Dr. Deadbolt
By this time, the ADAT format was becoming obsolete, and many recording studios didn’t have the machines anymore. No only that, but different generations of ADAT machines had different sampling rates and time codes, all of which needed to be compatible with our tapes.
We tried four different studios before we found one that could read the tapes. Fortunately, it was Tim Stambaugh’s Word Of Mouth. Jumonville and I had both worked with Stambaugh before and were very comfortable with him. He did an ace job helping us edit and mix, and the CD “You Are My Dream” was released in 2008, featuring four standards and seven Jumonville originals.
The track “Dr. Deadbolt,” is one of Jerry Jumonville’s most requested original tunes. The title comes from a soulful older gent who helped Jumonville buy locks to protect his instruments in a Los Angeles hardware store. The “A” section of the song is a bit like Ray Charles’s “Unchain My Heart,” with its funky minor Latin feel, while the bridge shows more of Jumonville’s bebop influence. Jerry Jumonville can be heard with his quartet every Wednesday from 6-9PM at the Maison, 508 Frenchman St., New Orleans.
Spike Perkins has resided in New Orleans since 1982, where he works as a musician and freelance writer. His work has appeared in the Times-Picayune, and other publications, and he has performed with many New Orleans-based artists. He wrote the cult hit “Pitbull” with Coco Robicheaux, and appears on Robicheaux’s “Spiritland” CD.
