by Lexi Kahn (photos by JustBill)
As parties go there’s none better than the annual Mardi Gras Ball hosted by Shaun Wolf Wortis and Suzi Lee. It’s a five-hour festival of classic New Orleans funk and soul, anchored by one of the best supergroups in town and speckled with fabulous guest singers from all sub-genres of local Boston music. The venue is always decorated with the traditional purple, gold and green Mardi Gras colors, people come in costume, beads abound and the booze flows like there’s no tomorrow. The 14th Annual Mardi Gras Ball was held at TT the Bear’s Place (Central Square, Cambridge, MA) on a frigid February 17th, 2007. Always on the Saturday night before Fat Tuesday itself, this night is the culmination of gargantuan preamble. Years of preamble.
I first started going to this shindig in the late 1990s after The Noise randomly assigned me a story on Slide, the exquisite swamp rock band fronted by Shaun and Suzi. At that time, Slide had been together for about ten years and were releasing their third CD. Shaun and Suzi were a couple who’d lived together, with a crazy cat (a "gato malo") near the Kirkland Cafe in Somerville; the Kirkland was owned by Joe Hernon, a dear friend of the band. The Kirkland was home base for Slide for many years, but I was a relative newcomer to the local rock scene and I’d missed most of Slide’s tumultuous run, which included national touring and a CD in the Baseball Hall of Fame. Unfortunately, my story on the band’s 1999 CD release for "Pulling Teeth" turned out to be among the last pieces written about them — it seemed like the band broke up almost before the club (ironically, TT the Bear’s Place, same club currently home to the Mardi Gras Balls) could clean up from the "Pulling Teeth" CD release party. It was a tough time for Slide, and it’s both miraculous and heartbreaking that "Pulling Teeth" is a musical chronicle of so much strife. Shaun and Suzi had broken up after twelve years, Suzi had lost her mom to cancer, Joe Hernon had died and life just kept piling on more stuff. The thin tendrils of loyalty and motivation that had been holding the band together up until the CD release couldn’t withstand any more, and Slide faded into the annals of local Boston rock history.
But in the true "let the good times roll" spirit of the New Orleans music so cherished by Slide, they kept the Mardi Gras parties going even after the dissolution of the band and personal relationships. For the first few years after Slide’s demise, bassist Dmitri Fane and drummer Ken Schopf were absent from the band for geographical and personal reasons, but they soon re-joined the Mardi Gras band, a sprawling supergroup that goes loosely by the name "Voodoo Krewe Revue." Though there’ve been a number of incarnations of the Voodoo Krewe Revue, mainstays include drummer Ducky Carlisle (who produced "Pulling Teeth"), Chandler Travis, Paul Ahlstrand and Mark Sanchez. Shaun sings and plays guitar, Suzi sings back-up and plays piano.
The Mardi Gras Ball is both familiar and new; though the night follows the same format every year, you never know what’s going to happen with the special guests. First, the band makes parade through the club (and sometimes out onto the street) to the classic "When The Saints Go Marching In." During the parade, in recent years accompanied by beautiful, scantily clad Burlesque dancers from some of the local troupes, beads get generously thrown to the eager crowd. Once on stage, they launch into the Party Boys’ "We Got The Party." In his 2003 book Vinyl Junkies, Brett Milano calls this song an "audio verite anthem to excess." It’s truly an ode to women and whiskey, with Shaun holding up signs designed to encourage a party-starting singalong. And it never fails to do just that.
Once the show gets going, the guests get called to the stage. One year, godfather of local cabaret Rick Berlin sang a song in drag and let his huge fake boobs pop out. Another year, frequent guest singer Bleu followed up a loose interpretation of Allen Toussaint’s "Holy Cow" with a spot-on cover of Paul Simon’s "You Can Call Me Al," where he led the horn section expertly through every twist and turn. In 2006, HUMANWINE’S Holly Brewer pulled out a show-stopping rendition of "St. James Infirmary," and I can draw a straight line from that performance to HUMANWINE’s 2006 win for "Best New Band" in the WFNX New Music Poll.
This year’s special guests drove the night straight into full-on spectacular, making 2007 one of the best Mardi Gras parties ever. Superior showman Sal Clemente (Ultrasonic Rock Orchestra) sang "Lady Luck" and "Neighbor’s Daughter." Local legend Willie Alexander pulled out a few killer performances, including "Fat Man" and "I’m Walkin’." Folk/Americana hero Dennis Brennan paired up with blues screamer Andrea Gillis for "I’m Leavin’ It Up To You." The showstopper was the delightful Steamy Bohemians, whose trio of Dixie Cups tunes absolutely killed. The Dixie Cups were the black girl group in the 1960s who claimed fame with "Chapel of Love." The Steamy Bohemians (Lainey and Niki) rocked "People Say," "Iko Iko" and "Gee Baby Gee." 
Even without the special guests, Shaun and Suzi lead the Voodoo Krewe Band with masterful abandon; there’s just enough tightness to make for killer twists and turns, but plenty of casual looseness so you know this band is having as grand a time as the roomful of dancing merrymakers. Plus, it’s always something to see the original four members of Slide on stage together, especially this stage, at TT’s where they played that CD release party for "Pulling Teeth" so many years ago. They play for so long that identifying stand-outs is impossible, but crowd favorites are the call and response "A Certain Girl," "Iko Iko," the seminal "Let The Good Times Roll," "They All Asked For You" and "Pocky Way."
In addition to the annual Mardi Gras, Shaun Wolf Wortis plays with a well-acclaimed Esquivel tribute act called Waitiki, smooth country act Paved Country, and fronts a gutsy project named in honor of the crazy cat he once had back in the Slide days. Gato Malo don’t rehearse; Shaun just books a gig, then calls a bunch of musicians with the time and date. He never knows who’ll show up, but the audience knows it’s in for something interesting when Shaun starts off by introducing the band members to each other. Musically, Gato Malo blends the Shaun Wolf Wortis "sound" (loose, swaggering swamp rock) with a fusion of classic rock and jazzy riffs.
If you missed this year’s Mardi Gras Ball, you can catch a reprise this summer when Shaun and Suzi present the pared-down version during their annual Bastille Day show. Go to wortis.com for more information and to get yourself on the mailing list for any of Shaun’s projects.
Links:
www.mardigrasballs.com
www.wortis.com
JustBill’s Photo Gallery of Mardi Gras 2007
