CAHOOTS
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| "Goodbye Bayou" |
| "Dancing Cajun" |
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Hello Louisiana
Join us for a trip around this exotic state, where the Caribbean meets the Old South; where the Red River meets the mighty Mississippi; where French and Spanish met at No Man's Land in the early 1700's. It's a steaming land of cotton and sugar cane, a heady brew of music and cuisine to delight and amaze the whole world. It's cypress trees and Spanish moss and poetry.
Where would we be without Louisiana? No Cajuns, Zydeco, Mardi Gras, pirogues or fais-do-do's? No Uncle Earl, Huey Long, Leadbelly, Jelly Roll or Professor Longhair? No "Hadacol Boogie", "You Are My Sunshine" or "Goodnight Irene"? No Satchmo or Marie Laveau? Where else do you find the French Quarter, the Louisiana Hayride, and the birth of jazz? Louisiana, the starting point for Elvis and the end for Bonnie and Clyde.
Visit the Oldest European town in the entire Louisiana Purchase (Hint: it's Natchitoches, not New Orleans). Oh, we'll visit the Big Easy, too, where Carnival thrives all year long! And that's just skimming the surface. Louisiana, is a world unto itself.
Let it haunt you. You won't want to leave. As the song says, "Goodbye Bayou, see you in my dreams."
This film was shown, in its 80-minute entirety, on Louisiana Public Television (PBS) on the Sunday before Mardi Gras, 2007.
To view a scene from Hello Louisiana, go to Louisiana Video Clips and click on any of them. Or click on either Music Video. Much of the music in this film is available on the CDs "Dancing Cajun" and "Going Back to Shreveport" by Monty & Marsha Brown. Contact us. It is sometimes said that your reflection is best seen though another pair of eyes. When it comes to Louisiana and all it has to offer, that adage proves especially true for Monty and Marsha Brown of Bossier City. Monty, a native of England, and Marsha, from upstate New York, love Louisiana. They love it so much they've written and produced a film about their adopted state just so others can understand all they have come to appreciate.
... says Marsha Brown. "'It is informative and humorous and fun. You can't help but tap your toes and you can't help but learn about Louisiana." For these two wandering minstrels. the idea for a film came about while teaching a school music program. "'We got a grant through the state arts program to teach kids about their own music ... and we kind of expanded on that," Marsha Brown says.
"The film shows so much more of our state than what everyone knows," she says.
Starting in the northwest parishes, you learn Natchitoches is the oldest European settlement in the Louisiana Purchase. You witness a baptism in the Cane River and discover how bousillage - a mixture of mud and moss - worked quite well as an early form of housing insulation.
In Bienville Parish you join in on an alligator hunt, see the roadway where Bonnie and Clyde met their end ...
Cajun Country introduces you to Floyd Soileau and his Flat Town (Ville Platte) record shop, Fred's in Mamou, where dancing starts early on Saturday mornings and the history of the forced exile of the Acadian people from Nova Scotia.
... cross the Mississippi River in Baton Rouge and into the world of Louisiana's famous — and infamous — politics. River Road plantations look out on tall rows of sugar cane....
New Orleans brings us back to the familiar pre-Katrina imagery of Mardi Gras, Jackson Square and the French Quarter as seen from a ferry boat ... across the river to Algiers.... "Within the film there is a lot of well researched information," Marsha Brown says. "Louisiana is a diverse and interesting place and this film serves to show others how special it is, while reminding us just how lucky we are to call Louisiana home. We are quite proud of it."