Having Them No Soap, No Hope Blues
“No soap, No Hope Blues” — sung here by New Orleans’ “Blind Boy Troy” Tallent on the banquette at Royal & Iberville Streets in the French Quarter — was written by jazz great & bebop pioneer Anita O’Day.
A local musician for nearly 40 years — his friends & colleagues renamed him “Da Pope of New Orleans” Troy Tallent was a busker’s busker. Everyone envied the half-blind musician, especially his perseverance. Sometimes it’d be 0-degrees early mornings, with the bitter wind-chill blasting through the narrow streets of the French Quarter. And there’d be da pope, sitting on a Kleinpeter Farms Dairy milk crate under the A&P sign (which he outlived).
Troy is there waiting for New Orleans’ street cleaning department to close-off the corner of St. Peter & Royal, to motorized traffic, so that he can then move to the center of Royal with his electric guitar and small amplifier (and, of course, his tip-bucket), before the other buskers take this prized “spot” in New Orleans’ busiest tourist district, the French Quarter.
Sadly, however, for the entirety of The Pope’s adult life as a musician on the streets and in the music clubs of New Orleans, he was rarely financially-rewarded for such hard work, performing to the public (locals, tourists, and travelers passing through) from early sunrise to way-beyond sunset.
Two years before Katrina, I loaned Troy a 1967 Fender Mustang guitar I acquired that supposedly Kurt Cobain had smashed on-stage at a UNO concert —and threw into the crowd (lucky catch!). Troy played that beige baby from sunrise to sunset in front of the A&P at Royal and St. Peter Streets, and at night on the sidewalk across from Pat O’Brian’s.
Thousands of tourists a day photographed Troy as they gathered around to listen to his blues music from Cobain’s favorite guitar. Sadly, again, most forget to tip die-hard artists as Troy Tallent and they barely eke-out a living.
Da Pope died Thanksgiving Day 2019. It wasn’t too long after his best street-musician friend, “Slewfoot” passed away. But “BP” killed Slewfoot (Mickey McLaughlin) — a story I’ll leave for another time….
— Thomas Balzac (“My Kingdom for an Editor!”)
