New Orleans in the 1970s: The Poorest City in America and the Richest Music on Earth

Come back with me to New Orleans in the 1970s — a city half sunk in the river at the very bottom of the country, poor as could be and not caring one bit, because it had something better than money and it knew it. Henry walks you street by street through the town it was: the morning dusted in powdered sugar at Café du Monde, the coffee cut with chicory, the music pouring out of every open door, and a brass band that could walk a man slow and sorrowful to his grave and then cut loose and dance the whole street home. There's the po'boy and the muffuletta, the St. Charles streetcar under the oaks, the Mardi Gras Indians in their hand-sewn feathers, the second line, Congo Square, and a brand-new little festival in the spring of nineteen seventy where Mahalia Jackson fell in and sang. It's a guided remembering — the sights, the sounds, and above all the smells of a golden American decade, built out of real streets and real names. Put it on, pour yourself a cup of coffee — the strong kind, with the chicory — and find your chair. If this old river town is yours too, or somewhere like it was, tell us about it in the comments. Subscribe, and we'll keep walking the old country home, one sweet season at a time. #NewOrleans #1970s #Nostalgia #Louisiana #FrenchQuarter #SweetOldAmerica #JazzFest #MardiGras #secondline #vintageamerica #babyboomers