After shamelessly leaving the news of my podcast guest-host star turn as the lead entry on the site for an entire week, I thought I’d start off this week with — reactions to that podcast.
First up, I got a a nice note from Jennifer Bernard of the Portland-based group The Stolen Sweets, who quite generously passed along their version of “SJI.” It’s a nice take. The band has a really cool sound: grounded in a kind of swing but nicely updated in the arrangement and production. And, for those of you in N.O., they’ll be performing at the Boswell Sisters Centennial there, in late November, early December.
Ms. Bernard notes that the Stolen Sweets are “obsessed with Cab Calloway” — who of course recorded one of the best-known and most influential versions of “SJI” — and mentions that “the Bozzie’s did lots of Cab’s tunes,” and also that the Stolen Sweets “have started writing new tunes, which add to the opium-addled ‘Minnie the Moocher’ ouevre.” Sounds good to me!
Hear a clip of their “SJI” and other tracks from their current CD Shuffle Off To Buffalo via the music page on the band’s site.
A couple of years ago I did some research into the song "St. James Infirmary," wrote up what I found, emailed that essay to friends and posted it on my web site (as part of a series of "Letters From New Orleans," as I was living in that city at the time). Based on the feedback, I wrote a second version of the essay, and asked for more feedback. Based on that, I wrote a 
