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Luke Spurr Allen: "Squawk and Squawk"

The boat-tailed grackle

Despite the throngs of tourists and ever-growing parade of festivals, New Orleans’ nightlife can be surprisingly intimate. The corner bar is often the anchor of a neighborhood’s social life, where friends, strangers, and familiar faces can share drinks, stories, dreams, and failures.

Luke Spurr Allen has been a part of this world since leaving his hometown of Salinas, CA more than two decades ago, and his songs are snapshots of what he’s seen and heard in that time. He’s spent plenty of time as both barfly and barkeep, and now has his own watering hole, the Siberia Lounge on New Orleans’ St. Claude Ave.

Allen recently stopped into Music Inside Out to chat with Gwen about finding inspiration beneath the neon lights, and let us know that a grackle doesn’t really care what kind of night you’ve had: Allen says they’ll “squawk and squawk and squawk and squawk.”

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Gwen Thompkins is a New Orleans native, NPR veteran and host of WWNO's Music Inside Out, where she brings to bear the knowledge and experience she amassed as senior editor of Weekend Edition, an East Africa correspondent, the holder of Nieman and Watson Fellowships, and as a longtime student of music from around the world.