Tim Eskew (of Bicycle Michael’s): There’s so many stories. Like when Coco [Robicheaux] lived above Café Brasil, and his wife was burning candles and burned her wedding dress down. There was a giant fire, and Adé’s on the roof–screaming with a hose, trying to put the fire out–and the firemen are like, “Come down!” and he’s cursing them and cursing everybody, putting out the fire.
Danielle Laramie Arcenaux (Coco’s widow/Spiritland Records owner): There are thousands of stories. I mean, we lived above Café Brasil for years. So another one: A week before we got married, Coco set the house on fire with me in it.
On April 23rd, 2001, a magazine was doing a spread on our apartment along with other New Orleans musicians’ digs. We had just renovated our place in time for our upcoming wedding celebration at Rosy’s Jazz Hall on May 11th. … We had everything ready. We’d painted murals on the walls, everything was so beautiful, all my bridesmaids’ gifts, wedding dress… Everything set. God laughs at plans.
Photographers for this piece came a day early. We shoved all the paints and everything under a sofa on the back veranda right next where Spiritland was.
Coco, of course, lit all the candles and sage for the photos and forgot to blow them out before they continued the interview, walking around the neighborhood taking pictures.
The candles and sage must have started the walls of Spiritland on fire. I was sitting on the sofa in the back. It happened fast: Spiritland blew up, and the flames started the paint under sofa on fire and blew me right off the couch.
I called 911. It was 3:33 PM, and I ran upstairs to warn a woman named Kim. She played piano late night at Pat O’Brien’s and was sleeping. I banged on her door till she woke up, and she ran down stairs and got out. James wasn’t home. Cindy from Judy’s Collage thrift store was out on the street crying from the damage to her store.
I ran back up the steps dazed to get my wedding dress—please don’t follow my example! I got a bit hurt but saved the dress.
… So anyways, fast forward. A few years ago, I was watching the show Treme on HBO. It’s still difficult for me to see Coco on screen or hear his voice. There’s an episode where he’s in OZ, and they’re talking. He needed a rooster in the episode for a Voodoo ceremony, and he mentioned the fire. It was the first time I heard him admit to starting it!
Meredith Lee (bartender): Alright, I asked Coco Robicheaux to marry me and my husband Johnny years ago. I wish I could remember what year—I’ll have to check the marriage certificate—but it was April Fools’ Day, and it was by the Tree of Life and Death outside the Fly, and he was there on time, and we were late, and he totally thought it was an April Fools’ joke.
But we showed up, and a whole bunch of other people from the bar showed up, and he married us. …I gave Coco an amulet from Africa, which a friend of mine had given me. I’d had it for twenty years and it was always good luck for me. I gave him that and fifty dollars for doing the wedding, and we go through the ceremony…and afterwards he goes home and finds his house on fire.
Jonathan Jamison (radio show host): “Also, that’s the same corner where Coco Robicheaux lived and set that apartment on fire. That was across the street, above Café Brasil, and it started because he had candles lit, prayer candles, just like the first fire of New Orleans in 1788. That was also started by prayer candles, a dude praying at his altar on Good Friday. He had some candles lit, and he walked out to go to the bathroom or something, and the candles caught the drapery on fire.”