Live music history

Let’s begin with the Parrot’s natural dive-bar credibility and our staff’s total lack of self-consciousness, to this we add a great core of inspired, passionate local musicians tossed with a sophisticated, loyal, diverse, honest group of customers looking for some real music, and a few other intangibles like the fact the most prized currency these bands were paid in came not from the till but from inspired, unrehearsed moves the dance floor, the calls for encores, the props touring musicians received from locals in the coffee shops and restaurants the next day, as well as boating or fishing trips or home-cooked meals offered.

To this add (and this could be the cooking time) that little by little we began to get a sense of just what it was that people here wanted, and we found what they wanted was simply something different, but it had to be good. It could be any style of music, as long as it was good.

We learned that there were many great road warriors out there and that Key West in general, and The Green Parrot in particular, was not a hard-sell especially in the winter months. In sort of a left-handed, symbiotic, if unfortunate way, the diaspora of post Katrina musicians brought the exceptionally talented, tradition steeped NOLA musicians to our corner and the similarities between the vibe on our corner and the vibe on theirs was not lost on them, or the Crescent City fans that soon followed them.

Someone once said, “if there was a recipe for this place, and someone took the care to write it down, I’m sure we would have lost it by now.”