Wolf's 17th Annual Mardi Gras Ball

Wow, it's been seventeen years! A night of New Orleans rhythm & blues. Featuring the Vudu Krewe All-Star Mardi Gras Band with special guest singers Holly Brewer, Dennis Brennan, Joey Pesce, Hope Roth, Linda Viens, Boston Babydolls and a set from Erin Harpe and the Delta Swingers!

Press Release

Cambridge, MA - For the seventeenth year running, Shaun Wolf Wortis' Mardi Gras Ball will turn a Boston area club into a New Orleans house party. Shaun Wolf Wortis (Gato Malo, ex-Slide etc.) leads a sprawling band—the Vudu Krewe All-Star Mardi Gras Band—through a high-energy set of old New Orleans rhythm & blues music, jazz-era torch songs, and sing-along "Mardi Gras Indian" romps. Special guests from the local Boston rock roster contribute unforgettable performances with the Krewe as a backing band. Long time attendees of the Mardi Gras Ball events can cite the classic New Orleans party songs, but Wortis and Krewe also mine a rich seventy years of Lousiana pop music for obscure nuggets. Indeed, regulars of the Annual Mardi Gras Balls may the only folks outside of the Crescent City to now be thoroughly familiar with Oliver Morgan's "Who Shot the La La," The Lollipops "I Got Loaded" or the Pelicans' "Drunk Drunk Drunk".

Health Care from the New Orleans Musicians Clinic

Wolf's Mardi Gras Balls are pleased to support the New Orleans Musicians Clinic which provides free medical care to musicians in need in New Orleans

Our country's health system is completely broken. The fact that so many of us are without any health care is, well, perverse. Until we are willing to agree on how to provide basic health care for all Americans, organizations such as the New Orleans Musicians Clinic remain necessary, and hence events like Wolf's Annual Mardi Gras Ball are also necessary. Yes, we do this because we love this music and love performing, and it's a heck of a fun show, but we feel obliged to walk around in ice-cold January and February Boston putting up fliers also on the hope that we can raise a couple thousand dollars so that our fellow musicians get basic medical care.

That's my rant and I'm sticking with it..