Located just outside the historic French Quarter, Frenchmen Street is a small but vital New Orleans music corridor. Welcome to Frenchmen Notes, a living project that seeks to document this pivotal scene—its complex history, heyday, and current state—and its cultural importance for music fans, community members, and researchers alike.
What is Frenchmen?
Despite being only two-and-a-half blocks long, the strip referred to as “Frenchmen” (a fraction of the entire named street) is its own tiny ecosystem, both culturally and economically. According to our interviewees, Frenchmen is or was “an arts incubator,” “where the locals go,” “an array of clubhouses”, “the best place to learn,” “the best place to play,” “bohemian,” “local,” “international,” and the “Wild West.” Once a “best-kept secret,” Frenchmen has become “a different world” to many of the community members who frequented or played the clubs in its heyday.
The music scene on Frenchmen began developing in the late ’70s and grew—slowly, organically, with a handful of venues—throughout the ’80s and ’90s. From the start, its bohemian character—thanks in large part to the area’s affordable housing at the time—encouraged artistic experimentation and innovation. With strange and wonderful fusions, innumerable attempts and failures, Frenchmen became an incubator for musicians, bands, and local micro-genres. Its cultural vitality was fairly unexpected—the strip had no great musical history, nor was it zoned for music, and the surrounding neighborhood was struggling out of an economic depression.
In the early 2000s, several new venues sprung up at once, creating a “snowball effect” for foot traffic, commerce, and gigs. Musicians could now make their entire livings on Frenchmen and do so playing original music for predominantly local crowds peppered with highly music-literate visitors. Clubs had their own distinct vibes and specialized in different genres. Most, for better or worse, didn’t charge a cover, and this variety and density gave pedestrians the ability to encounter several bands and artists in one evening. Musicians could easily meet new collaborators; friends and neighbors could enjoy an affordable night out.
Now a distinct tourist destination, Frenchmen has changed and continues to change. Dive into the anecdotes and interviews, articles and tables, timeline and storymaps, and more here at Frenchmen Notes to explore this cultural landmark.