Wanda Joseph is a veteran Frenchmen bassist who’s played with the Shepherd Band, Higher Heights, Daughters of Jah, Soul Project (currently), and others. She’s been a fixture at Cafe Negril, especially, in recent years, whether she’s working the stage or the door. We sat around her kitchen table in April, 2019 and heard all about how she got her start playing reggae, her early days gigging/hanging out on Frenchmen, and her take on some of the ways Katrina and Covid-19 affected and continue to affect the music scene.
Wanda Joseph: My name is Wanda Joseph. I have many nicknames—used to be Wanda Woman, Wanda Woo, now Magic Wanda, and there was another one I can’t remember, but I stick with Magic Wanda. I like that.
I started playing on Frenchmen about ’90. I got this reggae band back in the day called the Shepherd Band. We were the shit. We were the shit. I started playing with them in the summer of ’89, and I think maybe ’90 we started playing up in there on Frenchmen. It was Café Brasil.
Then, the next thing you know, a few years later, Café Istanbul [called the Dream Palace at the time] opened up, right? That was the only two clubs that I knew of. Oh, and I do believe the Apple Barrel opened around that time too.
I play the bass guitar. Right now I play with Soul Project; I’ve been with them since 2016. We just went to Tennessee.
I was playing with Higher Heights from 2007 to 2015. Me and Cheryl, the keyboard player, was in the Shepherd band back in ’89. When I left [Higher Heights], everybody playing reggae was trying to get me. I said, “I don’t want to play any more reggae.” You know, as a bass player, I wanted to get a little better. But reggae… I love reggae. I still miss it.
The Felling of the Vacant Lot
WJ: There’s a lot of things you hear that aren’t there anymore. You remember when there used to be that lot right there where the Dat Dog is, with the fire-eaters? Girl, look, when I came there and found them cutting down that palm tree right there… I was pissed. The man says—
Interviewer: “Because we’re going to build …”
WJ: [nods] Then, they cut that orange tree. There was an orange tree right there. I say, “Why are you all cutting?” He say, “Baby.”
I stood there—I was so mad, I was like, “Motherf—”
I was waiting on that orange tree to grow, too. Because I had just noticed it was an orange tree all them years. They came and they tore it down.
Int: They grew hot dogs instead.
WJ: Then, there was a beautiful palm tree on the back. Did you ever notice that palm tree? It was a big, tall palm tree.
[More on hot dog disappointment here.]
Trash Palace
WJ: And they had a big whole dump right there where the—what’s the place where they sell all stuff right there on the street?
Int: The Art Market?
WJ: The Art Market, yes. In the back, in the early ’90s, they used to have garbage cans up in there, and garbage trucks and all kind of stuff.
Int: They called it the Trash Palace. It was the warehouse, with all the garbage trucks.
WJ: I remember looking at it, and I’m like, “What the hell is this?”
Wanda’s reggae beginnings
Int: How did you end up originally playing Reggae? What was your musical story?
WJ: I started playing in ’82. My first band was called CJ Story [sic]. They were trying to get back up, but they were playing with Joe Tex. Joe Tex had been showing them around the world. Them boys had been to Europe. Back then, they was taking care of you a whole lot more than you do now. He died in a swimming pool one day and they were sitting there like, “How are we going to play?”
They found me. I was working at Avondale Shipyard. I came home and had to play a little bit for them. I was all right. Because I basically taught myself, you know? That was good to get in a band because getting in a band will only make you better, you know? I played with them, maybe a year and a half, two years, then I wound up with another band, called Cosmos. I liked the Cosmos. He was a bad guitar player, Byron, he lives in Atlanta now, but we used to wear Cosmos stuff. We used to wear silver and gold. The sparkly stuff.
After then, I wind up in ’96, ’97 with this oldie-but-goodies band. At that time, I was still in my twenties, and I was like, “Why am I playing with an oldie-but-goodie band?” Joe Francois [sic] he’s still singing. If you have the chance, go check him out. He’s one of those screamers. The dude, eyes would be so big when he was singing. We were sitting in with the other guys, we’d be sitting there laughing at him because with him dancing. He did his thing. Boy, he can sing.
That was the early ‘80s. There was no Frenchmen. There was Frenchmen, but I don’t think there was anybody on yet. I don’t know when Cafe Brasil opened up because I didn’t found out about Cafe Brasil until I started playing with the reggae band .
Multiculturalism at Cafe Brasil
… I used to love going to Café Brasil. That one made me stop going on Bourbon Street. Monday night they had a jazz band; Tuesday night, Klezmer played there, the Yiddish band. Then Willie Green, I loved that, every Wednesday. And I think Thursday was reggae, Ben Hunter—no, Ben Hunter must have been on Wednesday because Thursday was a Brazilian band and all the Brazilians used to come out for that. Lord, those people could dance. Banda Logun, that’s what they were called. The chick was from Brazil; she wound up going to Miami, I think. Friday and Saturday was alternative music.
It was so funny because Tuesday, the Jewish people came out, and same thing with the Brazilians on Thursdays. You look at the people like, “Yep, they’re Brazilian, they’re Jewish …” I loved that.
The only thing about Cafe Brasil, it had that [echo] effect… That’s the only thing I hear about playing when Istanbul opened up, it sounded so much better. But I loved playing at Cafe Brasil.
I went up in there [Favela Chic, formerly Cafe Brasil] the other day, and I see they put pictures on the wall. He had a jazz band, with a little singer, and it didn’t sound as boomy. He got all the pictures on the wall, and it seems like he took some of the boom out of there.
Shepherd Band
Int: When were your favorite years playing on Frenchmen?
WJ: When I was playing with the Shepherd band. Because of the band. I loved playing with that band. And the lead singer that they had? The ladies, and I mean everybody, loved that dude. He was just a good guy, a nice guy.
They had another band called Irie Vibration; we would open up all these places where Irie was playing at. Whispers, Charlie B’s … We practiced Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays religiously.
Int: Three times a week? Must have been tight.
WJ: Oh, and we were the best musicians, that was the thing. If anybody wanted the Shepherd Band, they knew they had to pay. We wouldn’t accept no less than $800. When you rehearse like that, it should get real tight.
And even after we stopped rehearsing, when stuff started falling apart, we’d have a gig maybe once or twice a year, and everything was still–you go right back.
Int: Oh, it’s muscle memory.
WJ: It was, right on until about three years, then one day, we came together and we started playing. They were like, “Ah…?” It was a train wreck.
[After an ongoing dispute with someone involved] I told them, “I quit the job.” ’98 was the last year that we wind up doing something. One of our friends passed, a good friend Zaha [sic], had an aneurysm, and I couldn’t believe that. He went, our roadies passed [incomp.] My lead singer, he died last year; he got in a car accident. I couldn’t believe that.
Girls’ bands, Cafe Negril
We ended up at Cafe Negril in ’98. Like I said, me and Cheryl, we had started a girls’ band. It was actually two bands—Irie Daughters I think was the first name. The two girls that were our lead singers, we wound up putting them out because there’s always some shit with the band. Then we became Daughters of Jah. We had this other girl, Kani [sic], and we sounded great for a three-piece band.
They opened up Cafe Negril around ’98. Some people we knew had it, and they were trying to make a reggae club out of it. It didn’t really work out; this other lady got it, and I think that she had that Bob Marley mural made.
And guess what, about three years I was in there playing, looking at that Bob Marley, and I happened to see the name of the guy that painted it; it was one of my classmates. Yes, we graduated ’79. I said, “Lord, look at this. That was my classmate.” Because the place right here, this was a barbershop, it was called Tropical, and he did the artwork up in there.
I can’t remember his name. It’ll come to me. Dwayne—come on, Wanda! I’m 61… He got a shop on Esplanade I think. Dwayne Conrad!
Soul Project
WJ: I was working the door at the club [Cafe Negril], and I was working on Thursdays, so I was sitting down there humming their songs. So when Christian asked me to play, and learn their songs, I said, “Look, I learned that song.”
He said, “Yeah, well I’m going to get you up to play it.” It was so funny, he said, “We’re going to get Wanda. Scott you go watch the door.”
I’d already practiced with Christian, so he knew I knew the song. Christian said, “Bro, just play the song. She knows the song.”
So we started off Breakfast of Champions. I think we did Breakfast of Champions. Yes, I mean, I know the song. One thing about me, I don’t read music, but … And once I started playing, they were like Ahhhh!
“I told you, I knew the song.” [laughter]
Halloween
WJ: For me, like I say, it was that band that I played with, but also, it was the local people. When we first started, it was the local people. I remember when Halloween kind of started right there too because I remember going out there one Halloween and everybody was dressed, black people, white, I’m like, “Why everybody dressed?” Black people don’t dress a lot, you know? Yes, it was a lot of people but not crowded like Bourbon Street.
That felt so good seeing it, and that was—I don’t know, maybe that was ’94? ’93 to ’94, I think that’s when Halloween started coming up back there. I noticed I used to see taxi cabs pulling up and dropping tourists off. People that walk on Bourbon Street, they been on there three days, they say, “Let’s go see something else. Oh, they got a reggae band.” A lot of people like to come and see the reggae band.
The longest I planned was one Halloween. I think it was 2008, Halloween fell on Friday, and we had another guy [to relieve her on bass]. I said, “Bro, he’s saying, ‘I’ve been trying to find a parking spot since eleven o’clock.’”
When he got there, it was 1:30, and I played til two o’clock. We started to play like at 9:45, because they wanted us to start early, so I played four hours and fifteen minutes non-stop.
Post-Katrina musical landscape; pickled meats; Camellia beans
The problem is, when you got shit like Katrina, it’s just like now after the pandemic: Frenchmen is not going to be what it was in ’19. Even though Frenchmen for us as musicians was going like I said—the crowd wasn’t the same—we still made money back then [in the years just before the pandemic].
… The funny thing with me is, I had no idea that most of the people [on Frenchmen] were not from New Orleans. We got a lot of people from Lousianna, but most of the people is from—we got people from Vermont ? … I mean, 90% of the musicians are not from Louisiana.
That’s why I say most people in Louisiana—in New Orleans, especially—are transplant. I call it transplant because they come here, they like what they see, and they love it here. So they come back and live here. Especially now after Katrina, because a lot of our people didn’t go back. The took their job opportunities everywhere else. A lot of people went to Houston. They call Houston New Orleans West, and they call Atlanta New Orleans East.
Int: Yes, I remember the 10th anniversary of the storm. That was what? 2015. I remember Mitch Landrieu, he went to Houston and Atlanta and was telling people, “Come home. Come home. It’s been ten years. Come home.”
WJ: I think a lot of people, they couldn’t find their way back home because of money or whatever. Also, a lot of people took advantage of more jobs over there, you know.
You just have to find the right place to get the food. My friend came back down here and bought ten bags of Camellia beans for herself and ten bags for her auntie. And some pickled meat. Because everywhere else you’re gonna have smoked meat. Smoked pig tails, and whatever.
In Texas, somebody took advantage of the New Orleans people there, ‘cause they got a store opened there that caters to New Orleans. They got Camellia beans, they got everything we use here. Everything you use here; all the kind of meat we want …
DJ takeover
Int: This is the other question we’ve been asking everybody: coming back after the pandemic, what needs to happen for Frenchmen to be as good as it can be?
WJ: Well, hopefully the clubs would not go for the DJs because, see, that’s what’s been happening. All the clubs have an upstairs, and there’s DJs upstairs. It had to be around ’14 because that was one of the last good years we had as far as money. I mean, we had another good year, because ’15 and ’16 we made less money but ’17 turned around in the fall like it normally does.
But ’14 was the last year where everything was going like it was. You make all your money from February to June first, til when June first come you’re like, “Shiiiiit!” But it would pick up the second week of September! All the way to Thanksgiving. Soon as Thanksgiving hit, well you’re off again!
But ’15 to ’16, when we stopped on June the first, it didn’t pick up till the very next year. I was like, “Wow.” There was two years like that.
Well, people stop coming because it’s hot here—everybody know it hot here! This is the newer thing, and I don’t think they started coming here till about ’16 or ’17: we’re getting spring breakers here. Well, they’re here to drink and party because they be at the club all night, and they don’t tip. I mean, they’re young kids in college, I understand, but they staying in the clubs all night long.
When I play at 30/90, we be playing, and we have a crowd, and sometimes it might not be a big crowd, but you can see a whole ocean, a river of people going to the elevator and the stairs going upstairs. I’m like, “Wow.”
Because eventually, it’s gonna do just like Bourbon Street. That’s going to make them get rid of the bands all together. I would hope they don’t do that because, simple fact: you there because of the bands. That’s what drew people [to Frenchmen] from [Bourbon]. Because of the bands.
I mean, like I said, they still letting us play. We getting that 20% deal. That works out better for the bands, they get 20%.
Keeping the crowd
Int: What’s a decent night’s work? What’s a good night’s work?
WJ: Depends on the night. Friday and Saturday, if you make $150, that’s not bad. A lot of times we make about $200. I’m going to say the average is $140.
Now, during the time when it’s bad, the money drop down to under $50. It’s depending on the date. Now. Friday, Saturday and Sunday, maybe even Thursday, you still probably make good money. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday [shrugs] … But I remember when Café Negril–Man, John Lisi played on a Tuesday, and every week it had a packed house. He would get lucky with the convention people. They’d come over there and stay all night. They come in with their card and John Lisi make weekend money sometimes over there. He always had a crowd, and what’s his name, Dominick?
Int: Grillo, the sax player?
WJ: Dominick Grillo, yes, had his band over there, man. He used to have a nice crowd.
[Hear from Dominick Grillo here.]
But the last three years? It’s been dead as hell Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. I figured we weren’t holding our crowd like we normally do because like I said, those people want to hear music that they know. Christian was like, “We’re not a cover band.”
I love Soul Project. It’s good dancing music and you can’t say nothing about it, but these young folks, they wanna hear what they wanna hear, you know?
Sierra Greene? They made a lot of money. She keeping that crowd. When I say “keeping the crowd”—when it started getting bad, on the bad days, nobody keep a crowd.
[Hear from Sierra Greene here.]
Like I said, when I first started playing Higher Heights we played til three o’clock every Friday. Now I went to Higher Heights and it was 12:30, one o’clock and it damn near empty. I’m like, “What?”
Wanda’s Dad
WJ: My dad is a musician too. Well, he was. My dad played at the French Market Cafe for a long time.
He was a drummer. If you ever been over there, [to Hannah] you said you’ve been here ten years? He died in 2012, so if you’ve been around there, they called him Joe Good. He was a light-skinned man. Played in a Dixieland band, the jazz band right there at the French Market Cafe.
He didn’t want to play in a Dixieland band anymore. He was in his ‘70s at the time, and he said “I want to finish playing rock ‘n’ roll. He didn’t want to play with Dixieland. After Katrina, he played that when they opened up, until he died in 2012.
When New Orleans hits the road
WJ: We need people to come back again. Then, we need the touring. It was the local people that made [our tours]. The same people came every week. We went to Florida, they were there. Do you hear me? Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. That Saturday came, I mean, you had a flock of people from New Orleans came there. Some of them came and went, and a lot of them stayed for the Sunday gig too because it’s a three and a half-hour drive.
We had so much fun over there, just like New Orleans do everywhere. They think they’re at home when they’re out. But I think it’s so funny, seeing people from the world, when they realize you’re from New Orleans, they definitely will say, “Oh, she’s from New Orleans.”
Excuse us, we didn’t know we had different rules down here! Because I went to Chicago one day, and I went to get me a piece of that pizza they had? I was standing there with a drink in my hand. I ain’t never realize, I said, “Oh, Lord, I’m not home. I’m not trying to go to jail.” I was going out there with my beer because we’ve been touring the last two years with the Soul Project.
i love it. wanda is wonderful! cheers…
i love it!!! Wanda is Wonderful!!! Cheers…