Ain’t no place I’d rather be than down on a Sunday in New Orleans, Cha Wa sings on its latest release, My People.
The funky, colorful bunch of “wild men” will perform at Hop Springs in Murfreesboro on Thursday, Oct. 6.
Channeling the spirit of Mardi Gras and old-school funk acts like The Meters and Parliament-Funkadelic, the Murfreesboro show kicks off the fall tour for the brass band.
Cha Wa’s music takes shape from the sounds of New Orleans’ Sunday brass band parades and centuries-old masking culture, particularly the Mardi Gras Indian community of which the band’s vocalist Chief Joseph Boudreaux Jr. is a fourth generation member.
“Mardi Gras Indian tradition and culture goes back over 250 years in the city of New Orleans. And it’s a culture that derives from men of color wanting to celebrate the Mardi Gras holiday but weren’t able to at the time,” Boudreaux said. “So what they did was they created these elaborate suits, it represented the Native Americans that helped the blacks escape slavery, and they actually helped them throughout the swamps and the bywater to get where they needed to go. So to pay homage to those natives, these men created what we call today Indian suits.”
When they open up their wings, gonna make the people scream.
Find more on Cha Wa at chawaband.com.
Mutual Groove opens the Oct. 6 show at Hop Springs; find tickets on ticketweb.com.
