INTERVIEW: John ‘Papa’ Gros on the wonders and challenges of being a NOLA musician
Photo: John Papa Gros gets funky at French Quarter Fest 2017. Photo by John Soltes.
John “Papa” Gros is one of the most prominent and celebrated keyboardists from New Orleans, a man respected for his solo career and his fronting of the legendary band Papa Grows Funk. When Gros comes to town, he brings with him decades of NOLA experience and a museum-like knowledge of his beloved city’s musical output.
These past two years have been trying for Gros and his fellow New Orleanians. The city has been hit hard by the pandemic, and major festivals, including Jazz Fest and French Quarter Fest, have been canceled over and over again. Then, there was the recent Hurricane Ida, the ravaging storm that tore through Louisiana and gave locals fear of another Katrina.
Gros has been touring with his band in the Northeast, so he hasn’t been home to experience the continued aftermath of Ida, which includes a city hoping for electricity to be turned back on. He spoke to Hollywood Soapbox in August, before the storm, about his personal weathering of the pandemic and his plans for the uncertain future. His thoughts and concerns are only heightened now that the hurricane has disrupted life in the Crescent City.
For those in Massachusetts, Gros will play Timberyard Brewery in East Brookfield Saturday, Sept. 5, and then he heads to Somers Point, New Jersey, for a show Sunday, Sept. 6. He’ll be back in the Northeast Sept. 18 for the Borderland Music Festival in East Aurora, New York. Fans can expect songs off his new album, Central City, plus choice selections from his earlier solo records and his Papa Grows Funk days. Of course, there will be a few NOLA classics thrown in for good measure.
Here’s what he had to say …
On the cancellations of large music festivals this fall …
I’m not as devastated or as panicked as I was a year ago because I’ve been through it once already, so, you know, just figure out what it is, try to do the best thing for the welfare of everybody involved, band and audience, and find a way. It’s always been hard. The music business has always been hard. This is just a different kind of hard.
On how he dealt with the news of Jazz Fest’s repeated cancellations …
I tell you what, when Jazz Fest got canceled, this was 2020 and then again this past April when it went by, yeah it is depressing. It feels like the biorhythms aren’t right. The energy is not right. … I really miss seeing all the people that come home, and I miss doing all the playing. It’s not right.
On being flexible with booking gigs …
Everything is as of today. It could change in an hour. It could change tomorrow. It could change in two weeks. That’s one thing I definitely learned from last year. You have to be flexible. It’s a fluid situation, so whatever is best for the well-being of everybody, you just go with it. I’ve had three gigs canceled today on the last leg of that tour on shows that I haven’t announced yet.
On what he’ll play during these September concerts …
Well, that’s the thing, I’ve never been able to tour Central City with the band, so this is the first time I’ll be playing with the band. So I’ll be doing a lot of Central City. I’l be doing a little bit of River’s On Fire. I’ve been slowly working in songs from Day’s End, so from three solo records. There’s a couple Papa Grows Funk songs that will get thrown in and then the standard classics from Allen Toussaint, Dr. John, the Meters. The staples always work themselves into the mix, and hopefully there’s a few surprises in there amongst all of that.
On what it was like to play before a crowd after some time off from live gigging …
It didn’t feel like doing a gig, and it didn’t feel like just playing music. It felt much more important than that, and the only way I can say it that way is it reminded me post-Katrina, trying to continue our New Orleans culture when our city was pretty much devastated. There really wasn’t a whole lot of political support for rebuilding us. We kind of had to do it ourselves to get the ball rolling and show why we were important, and so it really became more important than just playing music at that point. In May and June, when I was out solo, it was the exact same type of feeling, kind of like going out into the wild blue yonder and staking our claim, saying, ‘Yes, this is what I do, this is why I do it and this is why it’s important.’ Why it’s important is when you’re at the end of the gig, and you see a smile on everybody’s faces. It’s more important than playing and listening to songs.
On how Central City first came about …
This record was in the works for a long, long time. I remember when I was talking to Allen Toussaint and telling him about getting ready to go into the studio to record River’s on Fire. I told him I had the next record ready to go in my head. It’s going to be a classic New Orleans record. I’m going to write a few songs and do some cover songs. He said, ‘You’re going to do all that?’ That’s what I’m planning. I didn’t think it would take four years to realize it, but conceptually I had it all together. I probably had the cover songs picked out by then, and then just got to writing the original songs, but I kind of knew what the original songs were supposed to sound like, if that makes any sense, before I started writing. To me, it was going to be a record that told the story of what I love about New Orleans music from the time I heard it when I was a kid, why I fell in love with New Orleans music. It was going to be a record paying homage to that in the classic sense, the classic sounds, much in the same way of Dr. John’s Gumbo record, Professor Longhair’s Gumbo record, much of that same kind of vein.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
John Papa Gros is currently on tour in the Northeast. Click here for more information and tickets.
