BOURBON ST. 50's & 60's

Bourbon St 50’s and 60’s
At the end of the second world war Bourbon St. was in a golden period of time. The US was on top of the world we were feeding and financing and rebuilding the war torn areas of Europe and Asia and the money was flowing.
Cheap oil , new cars and good roads make travel easy and people came to New Orleans and Bourbon St. from all over the country. Foot ball was replacing baseball as our favorite sport and the Sugar Bowl became a major sporting event. The conservative life style of the fifties make Bourbon St the forbidden fruit. The wide open style of Bourbon St. was in contrast to the uptight morals of the time, and people from all over the country came to Bourbon St to let loose.
The strippers of the day had achieved “Star” status they were know though out the country and were treated as Celebrities. The music of New Orleans was played on radio’ everywhere. The jazz music of early days had given way to popular music of the time. Louie Prima, Al Hirt, Pete Fountain among others had become house hold names and a national following. Al Hirts “Java” toped the charts all over America. Then came Rock and Roll.
Many of the clubs used live music to back up the strippers. When I took over the “ Sho-Bar” in 1975 we found old flyers advertising Fats Domino and his band as the house band that provided music for the sho-girls to dance to. The electronic revolution had not really taken place in the country yet as far as the night club industry was concerned, and live music was still the main form of music. This was to all change with American Bandstand, the Record Hop and then the Disco taking over the industry but in the fifties the live music was still the king, and the strip clubs offered steady work for New Orleans musicians.
The fifties was the time when the recording industry flourished in New Orleans. The national attention that the Bourbon St. music was getting was put on “wax” by a variety of New Orleans recording studios the main one being “Cosmos Studio “. The Dixie Cups, Fats Domino, Frogman Henry, Frankie Ford, Irma Thomas and others hit the national charts with their New Orleans style Rock and Roll. As I grew up in the fifties in Kansas City I didn’t know anything about the night clubs in New York or La. Or Chicago but I did know the “Poppa Joes” was on Bourbon St in New Orleans.