"The Band Played On" (track five) is obviously about New Orleans....

Yeah, that's right. The horns at the beginning are playing a funeral march. It was awful watching that you know. I had been down in the south west going through some personal stuff and I got back home to see this on the television. Man, it was devastating. I lived there 30 years. It felt horrible watching the streets where I used to hang out under water. So yeah this was my tribute to New Orleans.

[NOTE: At this point we got into a brief conversation about New Orleans and the current situation down there. The majority of people who were displaced by the hurricane have still not been allowed to or are able to move home. The governments are dragging their feet on rebuilding all the housing and infrastructure - it's cheaper to keep the people in the displacement camps than it is to rebuild public housing which doesn't make big money for developers.

According to Naomi Klein's latest book Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, they have no intention of rebuilding any of the poorer neighbourhoods where many of the musicians lived and performed - the plans for redevelopment include luxury condominiums, expensive hotels, and convention centres. One of the first steps they took in order to discourage people from returning was the privatization of public schools. There used to be 104 public schools servicing the area in and around New Orleans - there are now only four - the rest have all been issued with private charters.

As I told Willy this he was repeating it to Nina and she knew about most of it already - I heard her say in the background, "Make you sure you mention about Brad Pitt using his own money to try and rebuild homes for people."

I know that the two women who sing back up for Willy in the Mink DeVille band, Lisa West and Doreen Carter, are both from New Orleans so I asked Willy about them. He said that they've moved back there, but there's no work at all and that the tour is a blessing for them. Organizations like the Jazz Foundation of America are trying to raise money to replace instruments for people, and get them jobs playing in schools - but that's only short term - the real disaster in New Orleans is still going on as thousands of people are still living in refugee camps (nearly all of them black by the way) and may never see their homes again.

It took Willy and I a couple of minutes to find the thread of our conversation after that - but we found our way back - he was obviously shaken up - and if you listen to this song you can hear how much he loves his New Orleans - and the heart and soul have been ripped out of it - never to be returned it seems.]