N.O bounce rappers spotlight on "pirates" inspired album

Big Freedia & Katy Red

By: Alison Fensterstock, NOLA.com/The Times-Picayune
December 06, 2012 at 9:36 PM

Son of Rogues’ Gallery, the sequel to the "Pirates of the Caribbean"
inspired collection of swashbuckling songs released on the Anti Records label in 2006, features 36 traditional sea shanties and various other oceangoing songs, recorded by artists including Iggy Pop, Courtney Love, Nick Cave, Patti Smith and many others.

This week, Anti announced that the album, most of which was recorded in 2010, has finally been scheduled for release.Producer Hal Willner told Rolling Stone that the second collection, which comes out in February, is “not as much about torture, sodomy and death” as the first.

---

It’s unclear whether New Orleans’ storied history with pirates had any bearing on Willner’s choice to schedule several sessions for the record at Piety Street Studios in the Bywater, where studio owner Mark Bingham brought the popular bounce MCs Katey Red and Big Freedia to the producer’s attention.

And so, it came to pass that at Piety Street one afternoon in 2010, Willner had the two rappers listen to a traditional rendition of the sea shanty “Little Sally Racket,” then sent them out to the back porch with pen and paper to put their own spin on the tune.

---

With Dr. John - there for his own session - looking on with a raised eyebrow, Freedia and Katey rewrote some lyrics with a naughtier bent. (More common versions of the song rhyme “racket” with “jacket” and “ticket”; the version composed on the fly at Piety started with “bucket,” instead, and moved on into rhymes unprintable.)

The rappers’ vocals were combined with a recording cut by the Akron Family. At Piety, James Singleton and Ivan Neville laid their own tracks on top of it.

The end result, Mark Bingham said, was highly original and wonderfully odd.

“It’s a piece of recorded music that’s the most unlike any other piece of recorded music I’ve ever heard,” he said. “It’s billed as ‘sissy bounce,’ but it has nothing to do with bounce other than the fact that it’s those two people.”

Several, thought not all the songs on the two-disc collection were recorded in New Orleans. Dr. John and Ivan Neville each took a stab at a sea shanty at Piety; Macy Gray’s version of “Off To Sea Once More” was waxed there, as was a version of Tom Waits’ take on “Shenandoah,” though the final version of his album track featuring Keith Richards, Bingham said, was recorded elsewhere.

Unfortunately, the Katey/Freedia/Singleton/Neville/Akron Family collaboration (when will we get to put those words together in a sentence again?) isn’t yet available to hear online. For a taste of pirate’s treasure, listen to Shane MacGowan’s “Leaving Of Liverpool,” which features Johnny Depp and Gore Verbinski, director of the first three Pirates films. Depp and Verbinski are co-executive producers of the collection.

Click below for some examples of the N.O. Bounce style of Big Freedia and Katy Red

Son of Rogues’ Gallery: Pirate Ballads, Sea Songs and Chanteys comes out February 19, 2013.