NEW ORLEANS NIGHTLIFE & MUSIC - New Orleans Musicians

New Orleans Musicians: Bruce "Sunpie" Barnes

National Park Ranger by day and musician by night, Bruce "Sunpie" Barnes knows New Orleans.

You're not from South Louisiana. How did you pick up Creole-French to sing zydeco?
I just picked it up. I was playing blues but I learned it from friends, like the guys in the Creole Zydeco Farmers, and Clayton Sampy and John Delafose.

Was the accordion a difficult instrument to learn?
It's like any instrument. You apply yourself. I learned the whole instrument. When you play accordion it should sound like a whole orchestra. You even want to hear the strings. Besides blues and zydeco, you do a lot of Caribbean music. That's one of the lesser-known sides of New Orleans. It's what this city is. This is a French Caribbean city. That was solidified with the influx after the Haitian revolution. It doubled the population of the city one year before the Louisiana Purchase. The Caribbean influence is in the architecture, the food, the music, religion, the language, the temperature, the tempo, everything. The fact that people play music in the street is Caribbean. There, people live half their lives outdoors. Porches are very Caribbean. That's not what was built in the French Quarter. But the people who built outside the Quarter were influenced by the Caribbean. You see all the raised houses with porches. People parade year round here. That's about being outside making music together.

So jazz also has Caribbean roots?
Jazz's main parts were spirituals, blues, ragtime and some other elements. The Caribbean influences came through Congo Square. Enslaved people had a free day on Sunday. They didn't have to make music like their owners. They were allowed to make their own music in public. You didn't have that anywhere else in the United States. Jelly Roll Morton, Kid Ory, Sidney Bechet, King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, everyone up to tomorrow night was influenced by that.