The 20th anniversary of the levee breaks after Hurricane Katrina passed is coming up this week and you will likely spot our artists in many interviews and performances on national and local TV, radio, podcasts etc.
Please let us know when you see and hear them.
It seems like it was just yesterday and a lifetime ago. When the levees broke, we had a 3000 square-foot office on Canal Street and six full-time employees. We had released a dozen albums in the 16 months prior. I was a single parent with a new girlfriend.
My 3 oldest children, my girlfriend, my parents and I evacuated first to Memphis for a few days then attended a black tie wedding in St. Louis and then spent a school year in Austin. My oldest had completed one week of his freshman year at Ben Franklin high school in New Orleans when the levees broke.
After several weeks in hotels provided by FEMA, my parents bought a home in Austin where they lived for 5 years before coming back. They invited us to live with them. It gave me the opportunity to travel back-and-forth between Austin and New Orleans 29 times in 9 months rebuilding my home which had 5 feet of water in it, and salvaging what I could from the office which had about 1 foot of water. It also gave my kids the ability to stay in Austin for the complete school year.
More important, those trips to New Orleans (and New Roads,LA) were to spend time with my girlfriend who I had been dating since the beginning of the year. The law firm she worked with at the time initially set up in New Roads, and soon returned to New Orleans. In August 2007, I proposed, and in May 2008 we got married. Our son was born in late 2009.
Along the way we received help from the Red Cross, the Recording Academy, flood insurance, and with a tremendous amount of frustration, eventually the Road Home program. I am also very grateful to Denise Thornton who created an organization Beacon of Hope to help our neighborhood and then others rebound. The organization made sure that people were able to gut their homes, maintain their yards and deal with the obstacles involved with permits and the road home program. As a result, my neighborhood is once again thriving, and has been for quite some time.
At that first Jazzfest after, Basin Street Records stepped from a label into a retailer in order to provide an opportunity for our label and all performing artists to sell CDs and vinyl at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. We sold over $180,000 worth of product that year and provided artists their checks and their unsold product one week later.
When I returned to New Orleans full-time with my family in August 2006, we spent a year in the upstairs of our home and in the repaired cabana that included a kitchenette and a bathroom. The downstairs was gutted to the slab and served as a makeshift office. I had replaced the air conditioning units for the entire home the previous year.
In June 2007 I was at the White House with Kermit Ruffins who was performing at the congressional picnic, where some press reported that the President asked the band to pick up the trash. Before the show I received a phone call from the road home program saying that my application had finally been approved and I would receive $150,000, the maximum amount of a grant. That grant allowed us to finish rebuilding our home. It is now beautiful thanks mostly to my wife, Kara.
Today we operate the company with two full time people; our operations director and me. The changes we made to the size and operation of the company because of the levee breaks are some of the reasons that we are still here today. There have been plenty of other obstacles to overcome since then.
The main reason that we are still here is because you love and support our artists, and this label. Thank you.
I know I will continue to reflect this week on Twitter and Facebook and appreciate your follows.
– Mark
COMING SOON
Davell Crawford – The Walls of New Orleans (Digital Single)
Out August 29, 2025
Kept in the vaults for 20 years, Davell Crawford’s long-awaited single, ‘The Walls of New Orleans’, will finally be released this August 29th – the exact 20th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina.
Originally written in the storm’s immediate aftermath, Crawford envisioned this song as a time capsule and a promise: a sanctuary of sound to be shared two decades later. Now, the moment has come.
Crawford has always used music as a sanctuary and his original, ‘The Walls of New Orleans’, is certainly a refuge for the hearts and minds of Louisiana, and serves as a most holiest temple of freedom from hardship and comfort. With gospel crescendos and blues soaked melancholy, Crawford transforms grief into grace. More than a lament, ‘The Walls of New Orleans’, is a spiritual balm – a reminder that the lives lost to Katrina were not statistics, but irreplaceable souls woven into the city’s cultural quilt.
Today, as the world looks back on that defining moment in New Orleans’ history, this song stands as a testament to survival, love, and resilience. It whispers what every survivor already knows: even when walls crumble and fade into dark evil waters, the spirit of New Orleans, rooted in faith, love, and shared history will never be washed away.
Mark your calendars. On August 29, 2025, ‘The Walls of New Orleans’, will be available worldwide on Basin Street Records.
Pre-orders available now at the link below.
Kermit Ruffins in Chicago
Bonerama in Charleston, Rhode Island
