From 1980 until 1992, I was editor and co-publisher of Wavelength, a music magazine in New Orleans. 'Dedicated to New Orleans music', Wavelength specialised in extended interviews with members of the New Orleans musical community, along with historical anecdote, in-depth coverage of the city's many music festivals and cultural activities, as well as listings of musical events in the city. Its readership included subscribers across the United States and in several foreign countries.

Information scarce - In the young discipline of popular music studies, material on musicmaking in local communities is scarce. As Sara Cohen has said, 'What is particularly lacking in the literature is ethnographic data and microsociological detail.' That’s particularly true of New Orleans, where even though there’s massive amounts of books that mention the city and its music, they’re not scholarly or useful by any means.

So outside academia useful - My work

Researchers are often limited, by funding or pressures to submit a thesis, to a short period of research. Since my work was not done through a traditional academic route, and not constrained by the usual institutional structure associated with research projects, I had the opportunity to observe, intimately and at leisure, one of music's most influential communities through time.

The information that I collected has been discussed intimately with the people that I have interviewed, and the community was consulted in many ways

My research proceeded on the principle that through looking at music and musical activities in this locality today (as opposed to looking at texts, and products), while reading all I could of the primary texts on the area, I could link history to oral histories and maybe get to some answers for such questions as:

5 how this community has embraced change, duality and contradiction, promoting a versatility that perhaps has contributed to the survival and durability of their complex cultural activities in an urban setting.

So the research strategy that I chose was one that placed great importance on listening to what people say, on valuing their opinions as ‘experts’ on their own community, and on a commitment to local ownership of research, emphasising the redistribution of knowledge so that the community could speak to a wider audience.

Some topics in this essay:
Sara Cohen, Deborah Cameron’s, , North America, Louis Gates, Marshall Sahlins, Bambara Choctaw, popular music, international music, popular music studies, ‘historical ethnography’, oral histories, knowledge researched, musical activities, music studies, cultural activities, music orleans, orleans centre,