In honor of McMonday, The Voice Runner Up Terry McDermott shares his thoughts on this year's contestants; the state of the music industry, and his loyal legion of fans who call themselves The McHobbits. McDermott has navigated his journey from Scotland to New Orleans to Hollywood with a sense of...

The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival has wrapped for the 44th year, but the music's still ringing across. Trombone Shorty and Aaron Neville closed out the two biggest stages this year, and across the festival track Wild Magnolias Big Chief Bo Dollis, his wife Big Queen Rita Dollis, and...

Frank Ocean returned to New Orleans Saturday, greeting the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival audience with an understated: "A lot has changed." The Grammy-winner took the music industry by storm with his debut album, came out in a sometimes homophobic industry, and won a parking lot war with Chris...

Adam Levine started his Maroon 5 set wearing a jacket, as the record cold day at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival necessitated. Levine sang I'm At a Payphone while working the stage, the mic and the audience as the crowd went wild. Once he was down to his...

There's no way to check in with Festival Productions CEO Quint Davis this week without mention of weather at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. "Sunday I would say, was the best worst day of the festival. It was amazing, we had that big rain from 11 to 12...

One of my annual traditions was calling my mother from the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Gospel Tent to give her a gospel fix over the phone. The last year she could hold a phone, she listened along for awhile then asked: "Is that you? You sound good!" If it...

Deacon John Moore offered a crystalline take on Steely Dan's Deacon Blues at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fest on Saturday. Rounding the festival track later, my husband told Moore he remembered him playing his CYO dances in high school. "I was so much older then," Deacon John said...

"I have never attended a music festival," writes Joe Zee, Elle Creative Director in a May fashion spread. The white Prada onesie on his model styled for Lollapalooza suggests as much, because in a battle between a festival port-a-let and a model in a white onesie, the port-a-let would have...

Roger Ebert's passing today is heartbreaking to the writing community and to budding writers who need an example of what it is to have a voice in the world and use that voice to great effect.

Last year he quietly helped save the University of Illinois student newspaper...

In That Is All, former literary agent John Hodgman sets the end of the world at a New Orleans lit festival. If that's where it all unfurls, what a way to go. At last weekend's Tennessee Williams New Orleans Literary Festival, lovers of theater, literature, modern authors and...

P.R. Nelson, also known as Prince, blew Austin's South By Southwest festival away at a show hosted by Samsung last night. The concert was promoted with Twitter hashtag #thenextbigthing, though Prince may be better suited to hashtag #eternalpurplerockgod. It reminded me of the Super Bowl in New Orleans,...

Mickey Hart's childhood memories of the Jersey Shore inspired him to write a benefit song (HERE) for victims of Hurricane Sandy, and it's coming in a little later than the first wave of benefits for a reason. "I knew that it would need an afterburner. When I saw...

Stevie Wonder at the top of his...

New Orleans is an embarrassment of riches in its food and music culture, as thousands of Super Bowl correspondents are currently reporting to the folks back home. One blessing from living in food and music central is the level of expertise to be found sitting right next to you on...

The Mystic Krewe of Barkus 2013 rolled through New Orleans' French Quarter today with block after block of canine costumes. For the Krewe's 20th year of parading, the theme was Tails & Tiaras: Here Comes Honey Bow Wow.

A true community parade, dog rescue groups march with pets...

Welcome to New Orleans, 5,000 reporters, bloggers, Instagrammers, Pinteresters, Facebookers and Tweeters here to cover Super Bowl 47. Our streetcar lines are expanded, convention center renovated and rooms are entirely booked. Assuming you get here Monday, here are some tips for a week's worth of NOLA:

The first rule of covering a horrific event aftermath is: No Disaster Baiting. After Hurricane Katrina, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger showed orderly earthquake fallout in California, pointing out to the cable news crews - "The people are happy. They're doing yooogahh."

When you're hurting, and raw, someone comparing their...

It's Halloween in New Orleans with skeletons sitting on pedicabs, blue vampires peeking out from the Rodrigue Blue Dog gallery, and ghosts floating from glowing balconies. New Orleans is as known for vampire balls, voodoo traditions and cities of the dead as it is for food and music. It can...

When W New Orleans French Quarter hotel first revealed its redesigned Marie Laveau themed room, hospitality staff entering to clean the room saw the giant image of the Voodoo Queen and responded: "Oh, HELL no." The design team noted that the difference between a nod to Voodoo and full on...

By the time Mickey Hart finished his AARP convention appearance in New Orleans yesterday, we had quite literally seen his brain on drums as his brain waves were projected onto a screen by neurologist Dr. Adam Gazzaley through...