‘St. Roch Blues’, an emotionally-charged track which pays tribute to recent murders in the New Orleans neighbourhood, leads off the new Hurray For The Riff Raff album ‘Small Town Heroes‘.
“It wasn’t until I got to New Orleans that I realised playing music was even possible for me,” singer Alynda Lee Segarra explains of the track’s genesis.
“The community I found in New Orleans was open and passionate. The young artists were really inspiring to me. Apathy wasn’t a part of that scene.”
“And then the year after I first visited, Katrina happened, and I went back and saw the pain and hardship that all of the people who lived there had gone through. It made we want to straighten out my life and not wander so much. The city gave had given me an amazing gift with music, and it made me want to settle there and be a part of it and help however I could.”
Out through ATO Records on March 31st, the album was produced by Lee Segarra and engineered by Andrija Tokic of Alabama Shakes fame.