Phoebe Vlassis
Fort Proctor, Louisiana
I know Phoebe through one of my Mississippi River connections named Wolfie (whom I met through Driftwood John Rusky). I told Wolfie I was looking to meet some musicians. He told me to go to a backyard fundraiser for a lost canoe. Phoebe and ‘The Greek Band’ were playing to raise money for a new one.
The party was in the Bywater. My place was on Music Street and Marais. I meandered down Burgundy and passed a woman sweeping leaves into neat piles. I nodded hello, admiring the work. We chatted. Her name was Arlee Leonard. Turns out she was a musician, and the daughter of musicians, Roselyn and David. All of whom would end up doing tinyboatsession. At the party, after I had introduced myself to Phoebe, I overheard a woman say ‘Albuquerque,’ my high school hometown. Her name was April Goltz. She’d been in Albuquerque for years doing Flamenco dancing and it tuned out she knew several of the people who had already participated in tinyboatsession, Season 3, and knew a slew of musicians in New Orleans too. In one one-mile walk to a party for a lost canoe it seemed like the city of New Orleans conspired to make Season 5 of tinyboatsession possible.
The canoe they were fundraising for had been lost in Fort Proctor. When I looked it up I realized that if Phoebe did a tinyboatsession, there could be no place else. So, a few weeks later, along with her friend Koko we took to the seas with an accordion and a guitar to bombard the fort with song. @phoebe_vlassis