The Big Easy Top Ten: Down At the Twist and Shout (#6)

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Dolly, we’ll always love you. It only seems fitting that today’s song that celebrates New Orleans in lyric is by a woman, because Dolly helped redefine country music for so many women. So put on your dancing shoes, it’s time to head to the feis do do! #6: Down At the Twist and Shout - Mary Chapin Carpenter Look out, Rebelann, your chair’s gonna be rockin’ today! Here we have another powerhouse, energetic woman who writes her own songs and marches to her own drummer. Mary Chapin Carpenter is from that hotbed of country music, the hills of New Jersey. (Yeah, I meant it as a joke, but the late Joe Bonsall of the Oak Ridge Boys was born in Philadelphia. Country music is from the heart, not the dot on the map.) This bouncy Cajun tune, featuring the members of the Cajun band BeauSoleil backing her on the recording (as well as appearing in the video and getting a name drop in the lyrics [“except when the papers say BeauSoleil is a-comin’ into town”]), celebrates the joy of Louisiana music. Yes, New Orleans gave us jazz, but it also gave us a lot of other great musical sounds. Down At the Twist and Shout Written by Mary Chapin Carpenter Recorded by Marty Chapin Carpenter From Shooting Straight in the Dark, 1990 NEW ORLEANS LYRICS: Well I never have wandered down to New Orleans