Louisianaradio.com: Bringing Bayou Boogie to the World- Page 4 of 4

There's Something
In The Soil
by R. Reese Fuller

Zydeco great Rockin’ Dopsie once declined to perform on Saturday Night Live because on that particular evening he was scheduled to play a church
benefit in Houston • Noted as a Chicago bluesman, Buddy Guy was born in Lettsworth, Louisiana • Little Richard recorded “Tutti-Frutti” at Cosimo Matissa’s recording studio in New Orleans • Cajun accordion master Nathan Abshire passed away in 1981. Abshire could not make his living as a musician, and to support his family he worked for most of his life at the city of Basile’s town dump • Cousins and pianists Jerry Lee Lewis, Mickey Gilley, and Jimmy Swaggart all hail from Ferriday • Clifton Chenier, The King of Zydeco, was from Opelousas. His music combined the old French music he heard as a child with the popular R&B of his day •Jazz legend and trumpeter Louis Armstrong was a native of New Orleans • Former governor Jimmie Davis, who also penned “You Are My Sunshine,” once rode his horse into the state capitol. When asked why he did it, he replied that his horse had never seen the capitol • “My Toot-Toot,” the biggest single in the history of zydeco and winner of a Grammy Award, was written by Rockin’ Sidney Simien and was recorded in one night solely by him in his garage • Eighteen-year-old pop sensation and Mickey Mouse Club alumnus, Britney Spears is a native of Kentwood • Gangsta Rapper Master P, a.k.a. Percy Miller, founded the No Limit record label and made New Orleans the rap capital of the nation • Louis Prima, the undisputed King of Swing and New Orleans native, wrote “Sing, Sing, Sing,” a huge hit for Benny Goodman.

Unlike many successful Inter-net start-ups, louisianaradio.com has no immediate plans to issue stock options, although the Fullers do have secret ideas for expanding their operation. “This company is not meant to cash in,” Reese Fuller emphasizes. “The point of this is to make enough money to sustain it to do what we enjoy…it’s about music.” Shamus adds, “When you get into something that’s cutting edge or pioneering or new in any field, you’ve got a responsibility to steer it in the best direction you can.” Still, the Fullers are, first and foremost, entrepreneurs – they’ve been putting in 12 to 14 hour days, seven days a week, since louisianaradio.com was launched, and they are determined to keep their station on the forefront of the Internet radio market. Reese – the webmaster, public relations man, and ad salesman – has been lobbying to have the site included on the Internet radio systems that are being developed for new cars. Meanwhile, Shamus – the computer programmer – has been improving listeners’ options for sound quality by experimenting with MP3 Stereo Streaming and adding SonicBox, a system designed to play Internet radio through home stereo systems.

Like any good businessmen, the Fullers also keep tabs on their customers. “What we thought was going to happen was that the majority of people listening to our website would be on the Internet doing strictly Internet activities,” Reese says. “What we found is that 31% are actually browsing through the website while listening, 27% of them are working on computer-related activities that are not necessarily web-based, so they’re doing word processing programs, they’re balancing their books; 26% of them are visiting other websites, because they can listen to us while going to our advertisers or other websites. This is pretty cool: 14% of them, while they are listening, are engaged in some non-computer-related activity, which is doing the dishes or cooking or whatever. We didn’t expect that. It’s a small number in the grand scheme of things, but it’s pretty impressive. I’ve had people send me e-mail and say, ‘I’ve hooked my computer up to the stereo because of y’all.’” In addition to attracting a loyal web following, the cyberstation has been written about in The Christian Science Monitor, Rolling Stone, The New York Times, USA Today, Billboard, ZD Net, and other print and online publications.

“We’ve pretty much staked our entire existence on this,” Reese concludes. As the jam session in Shamus’ and Courtney’s living room winds down and we head off to hear the ReBirth Brass Band at the Rinky Dink – a Lafayette club owned by Millsaps alum Richard Grant – it’s apparent that the Fullers’ stake in Louisiana music is much more than financial. For at the same time their website is bringing the songs of Buckwheat Zydeco and D.L. Menard – and the din of Fred’s Lounge – to browsers in Slovenia and Brazil, the Fullers are living, breathing, and playing Louisiana music at home every day.

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