Ensconced somewhere in the Baseball Hall of Fame is a CD by 1990’s Boston band Slide. The recording, “Forgiving Buckner”, was the opening volley by the quirky band who’d release two more CDs before disbanding in 2000. Otherwise long gone their annual Mardi Gras Ball continues on as "Wolf's Mardi Gras Ball", and the Shaun Wolf Wortis and the Legendary Vudu Krewe—a sprawling band of grizzled local pros—soon will celebrate the twentieth such affair, a good run for any rock scene happening anywhere. Cambridge, not usually in the same league as New Orleans when it comes to ‘balling’, puts up a good fight each year at the Ball—an exuberant soirée. Wortis, super fan of the oddball Rhythm & Blues music of the mid-century Crescent City mines NOLA record shops for the meatiest nuggets. Thus regulars of Wolf's Annual Mardi Gras Balls could very well be the only folks outside of the Crescent City to now be thoroughly familiar with Oliver Morgan's "Who Shot the La La," or the Pelicans' "Drunk Drunk Drunk".

(Photo: Slide ca. 1998 at a Mardi Gras Ball. Photo: Corinne Schippert)