Munck Music has recently released The Continental Drifters’ 2023 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival reunion show as a digital download and via streaming platforms. The set features Drifters classics and marked their seventh appearance at Jazzfest.
Operating from the mid-1990s onwards, the Drifters helped begin to define what Americana was, or would eventually be.
The recording features a selection of the band’s key songs, brought to life in front of a festival crowd by the longtime lineup of Russ Broussard, Susan Cowsill, Peter Holsapple, Robert Mache, Vicki Peterson, and Mark Walton. The set also includes poignant musical tributes to founding member Carlo Nuccio, who died in 2022.
The Continental Drifters came into being in the 1990s in Hollywood California as a band of journeymen players who gathered together at a house in the Hollywood Hills where they added harmonies and expertise to each songwriter’s works. They brought the songs to a Tuesday night club residency that saw the lineup shapeshift almost weekly with a steady stream of guests.
Once they had relocated to New Orleans in 1993, and all original members except bassist Mark Walton had left the fold, the work became the foundation of two albums, 1998’s Vermillion and 2001’s Better Day, and led to some celebrated live shows.
