Ghost Stories: Paul Sanchez Tells His Tale.

The dreams I had were fun but they were dreams meant for the young I had to start anew so I could grow I had to learn to breathe had to learn to believe in myself I had to learn to let it go — Paul Sanchez, “I’m A Song, I’m A Story, I’m A Ghost.”

- John Swenson

It’s been 15 years since New Orleans was left for dead after Hurricane Katrina. Officials from the lowest to the highest level of government looted what was left of the city while its population was being shipped all over the United States. Social media as we know it today did not exist; there was no way for violently separated families to find information about each other, no means to return unless you had money. It was so bad that if you didn’t live through it yourself you probably can’t even believe what happened.

People talk of how the city remade itself, but the truth is that the city, the state, the federal government and the law enforcement establishment completely botched the recovery. Whatever happened to save New Orleans took place on an individual basis. It was thousands of acts of will by people who stood up and played the greatest role of their lives. Of course, there was an unusually large number of artists leading the way, because New Orleans is a city where most art thrives in public and is not commodified.

One of the artists whose transformation helped the city refresh its soul was Paul Sanchez.

Before Katrina, Sanchez was an overshadowed sidekick to the voluble front man Fred LeBlanc in Cowboy Mouth. Sanchez likened his time in that band to being in a dysfunctional family. When he lost everything he owned in the flood that followed Katrina, Sanchez threw caution to the wind and quit the Mouth.

Sanchez drew the Death card from the Tarot deck. But as any street corner card reader will tell you, the Death card is also about rebirth, about transformation, and Sanchez rose from its ashes like a phoenix. He recorded a remarkable series of albums. He wrote the score to a musical adaption of the book