Marcia Ball

is honored with a Brick from the Wichita Blues Society.

The following tribute is excerpted from an article by Dave Ranney that appeared in the February 27, 1998 issue of The Wichita Eagle:

"Marcia Ball grew up in Vinton, a tiny town in the crawfish-laden bayou country of Southwest Louisiana. It was a place where families' Cajun roots ran deep, a time when conversations contained as much French as English. And music, of course, was everywhere.

'We had Wednesday night dances in the summer in the Catholic hall, which was across the street from where we lived,' Ball said. 'Back then, we didn't have air conditioning nobody did. So our windows were always open and, as a child, I would lay in bed at night listening to all this wonderful music.'

Today, Ball, a singer, pianist and songwriter, is one of the most accomplished - and entertaining - artists on the contemporary blues circuit. Her music defies an easy pigeonhole. It's blues, but in a Gulf Coast rhythm and blues sort of way. It's country, but not by today's standards. It has a Cajun flavor, but with a lot of New Orleanian spices.

One minute she's singing about her mama's cooking and how 'people ask me why I don't get fat/ It's 'cause I like to dance like that/ I eat as much as I can hold/ And go out and do the zydeco.' The next minute, she's wailing about broken hearts, men who don't know better and women who should.

On piano, she's obviously been under the influence of Jerry Lee Lewis and all the New Orleans maestros: Professor Longhair, Tuts Washington, Alan Toussaint, Dr. John. And yet she has a style that's all her own."

September 12, 1998