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Gallery
Discipline: Music
Curator: Patty Lee and Armand St. Martin |  | BRUCE “SUNPIE” BARNES’ musical expression grew out of early immersion in the blues tradition carried on by his father and the community around him. “Blues is central of all my music,” he declares. “The music I write, perform, and record comes to me in dreams. It was my grandmother who explained this direct way of receiving information to me.”
Sunpie also credits his grandmother, Louvina Norris, for putting him in direct touch with the spiritual and practical lore of his ancestry. He says she showed him plants in nature that heal and prepared him to understand ways that have served him well in his original music, his schooling, and in his encounters with elders in his travels throughout the African Diaspora.
Albums available of Sunpie and the Louisiana Sunspots include: Loupe Garou, Lick a Hot Skillet, Sunpie, Legends of the Swamp, and his new release Zydeco’s Got Soul. While they may on the surface seem diverse and unconnected, all evoke the music of the African motherland and African music traditions which are alive in the Caribbean as well as here in Louisiana.
Barnes is a 40 Days performer and music artifacts contributor, donating his washboard and djembe (both items flooded in the Broadmoor area during Hurricane Katrina). | 
| BENJAMIN BULLINS is an award-winning photographer and artist from New Orleans. He graduated from LSU with a bachelor of fine arts and also from Delgado Community College with a degree in design. Before Hurricane Katrina, Benjamin worked in New Orleans as a professional photographer for editorial magazines, newspapers, and individual clients. He has been published in over 30 editorial magazines and newspapers, including some national media. As a photographer, Benjamin likes to incorporate texture and vibrant colors into his work. As an artist, he is especially interested in found objects which can be incorporated into art. His art education combined with his construction background and unique eye gives him the talent to put objects together in a very creative way. The beauty of manmade objects enhanced by natural elements gives birth to a collection of art which Benjamin brings to life in each figure that he creates. Benjamin thanks the Lord everyday for his artistic talent.
Benjamin has contributed two free-standing sculptures, found objects from Katrina-affected areas in New Orleans, to the music curator section of 40 Days.
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| JAY CHEVALIER, a resident of Kenner, was born in Lecompte, LA. His first recording, The Ballad of Earl K. Long, sold more than 100,000 copies. He also worked as an actor and consultant for the movie Blaze, starring Paul Newman, and on the movie Cobb, starring Tommy Lee Jones. Chevalier worked for Governor Earl K. Long until Long's death in September 1960. He later performed in Las Vegas at the Million Dollar Golden Nugget for many years throughout the 60s and at the Union Plaza Hotel during the 70s. In 2003, Jay became a published author for the acclaimed book Earl K. Long and Jay Chevalier When the Music Stopped (Southern Legacies Press).
Chevalier is a member of the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame, Louisiana Political Hall of Fame, and the Rockabilly Hall of Fame. He performed for two international festivals in England: the Hemsby Festival (2005) and the Americana Festival (2006). His song Come Back to Louisiana was proclaimed the Official State Recovery Song by Representative Danny Martiny on House Bill 796, which read "Jay Chevalier shall be known as the Official State Troubadour for the Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita relief efforts as he travels the world bringing awareness of the destruction caused by the hurricanes and the continuing needs of the people of Lousiana."
Chevalier will perform at the 40 Days exhibit. | 
| THE DESOTO STREET BAND is a New Orleans-based acoustic roots string ensemble. All members live and work in New Orleans and are committed to the healing power of music. The band includes Steve Wulff, Frank Cole, Laurie Dawes and Robert Eustis, who perform on instruments ranging from traditional guitars and upright bass, to djembe, kazoo, dobro and bouzouki. Their vocal harmonies and unique entertainment style are enjoyed at venues such as the Crescent City Farmers Market, the 200th Anniversary of the Faubourg Marigny, Mid-City Art Market, Second Saturday Art Walk in Bay St. Louis, the River Shack Tavern, the Louisiana Music Factory and WWOZ-fundraisers. Their original songs have appeared on the Katrina Kapers album and are currently scheduled for Little King Records, featuring Wulff’s Katrina song, My Town.
The Desoto Street Band will perform at the 40 Days exhibit. |  | HAYDEE LAFAYE ELLIS is a painter and musician and a native New Orleanian, now residing and working in Folsom, Louisiana. Her work has been shown in museums and galleries across Louisiana and in New York City, and appears in private and corporate collections nationwide. She has participated in public arts projects with the Arts Council of New Orleans. She is recognized for her landscapes, as well as her portraits, primarily, but not exclusively, of musicians. Her subjects have included such icons as Fats Domino, Wynton Marsalis, Charles Neville and Walker Percy. As a musician, Ellis has led several bands, appearing in many private and commercial settings including the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. She works in public radio, recently as Associate Producer of the nationally syndicated "South to Louisiana, a Cajun and Zydeco Music Show." She is also currently working with the nationally syndicated roots music show "American Routes."
Ellis has contributed artwork, which was interrupted by hurricanes Katrina and Rita, for the music curator section of 40 Days.
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| ARMAND ST. MARTIN, a New Orleans musician whose piano-based compositions and original songs can be regularly enjoyed at the Ritz-Carlton, has directed and performed at hundreds of live music shows in his 40-year career. Having studied music theory, composition, and mathematics at Tulane and Loyola Universities, St. Martin's engagements range from Jazz Fest to Generations Hall, Basin Street Station to Harrah’s Main Theatre, the Foundry to the Audubon Zoo, and the Cabildo to the Superdome. His guest performances have often been seen on New Orleans television, and he toured nationally with Epic Records artist Micheal Smotherman. Together, they performed for Andy Warhol, and filmed a music video for Showtime. He performed his Katrina Anthem Orleans Lullaby live for Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation’s “Pink Project.” The song is also on the soundtrack of Chris Madden’s documentary, Project Katrina. St. Martin’s Storyville was featured on the K-ville television series. Dozens of superstar musicians appear on St. Martin’s albums, Sizzlin and Alligator Ball, including the late Danny Federici from Bruce Springsteen’s E-Street Band, and Kenny Gradney, Little Feat’s bass player. Martin is co-producer, music director, and a performer for the multimedia commemorative event held annually at the Landmark Canal Place Cinema Theatre, titled “Katrina Artistically Revisited.”
St. Martin is a 40 Days performer and music artifacts contributor, donating his Music Ephemera to the music curator section of the exhibit.
|  | DR. MICHAEL WHITE, a clarinetist, is among the city’s most prominent musicians. He also holds the Keller Endowed Chair in the humanities at Xavier University, received his doctorate from Tulane, and is a scholar of traditional New Orleans jazz and a collector of its material legacy. Over the years, White has gathered bits and pieces of the past, often conducting oral histories with the same elder players with whom he had performed in the past. It's an academic and artistic project that has led him to be a bandleader, teacher, lecturer and mentor. White has recorded two critically acclaimed albums for the New Orleans-based Basin Street Records label, Dancing in the Sky (2004) and Jazz from the Soul of New Orleans (2002). He was a substantial collector of jazz artifacts and history in New Orleans for 30 years, but lost nearly everything during the flooding of Hurricane Katrina. The eight feet of water that rose to claim his home and so much of his work also claimed a significant portion of the city’s connection to its musical past. To that extent White’s loss has been both personal and public. And to the same extent, so is his recovery.
Dr. White is a 40 Days performer and music artifacts contributor, donating his clarinets (which flooded during Hurricane Katrina) to the music curator section of the exhibit. |
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