Tipitina's

Tipitina's in New Orleans got its start in 1976, when fourteen young music fans, mostly Tulane graduates, pooled about fourteen thousand dollars to buy a run-down Napoleon Avenue club with one goal: give pianist Professor Longhair a stage worthy of him. You'll hear about the Get Da Piano Dance, a fundraiser with the Meters held to pass a hat for the very piano still on stage, and how the club got both its name and its banana logo. The guide follows the venue through a 1984 bankruptcy, new ownership in 1986, and a costly renovation a decade later that founded the Tipitina's Foundation. Listen from near the stage where that hard-won piano still sits.