Amzie Adams: From Marine to Musician
Amzie Adams in Envie Expresso Bar & Cafe, July 2026, by Ellis Anderson
August 2026A young Marine on leave visits New Orleans and winds up at the Wrong Place – only to find the city is exactly the right place.
~ by Amzie Adams
This project is underwritten in part by Rose Ali
This project is made possible in part by a grant from the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Foundation, Inc.
This project is underwritten in part by Kelly & Linda Baker
Hello, I’m Amzie Adams.
It’s 1964. I’m 19, 20 years old. It’s Christmas.
For six months, I’ve been sleeping on my machine gun at Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina. I’m a Marine, in the barracks with my buddy. I’m shining my shoes, because I don’t want to go home to New Jersey, to three feet of snow.
“Wanna hitchhike to New Orleans?” he asks. “It’s warmer down there.”
Warmer sounds good.
We hitchhike down and get off at Biloxi. It’s 3 a.m. and the breeze is coming off the Gulf of Mexico. I can’t believe the warmth, the humidity, in December.
I think, “This is awesome. I’m liking this already.”
We stay at the Lakefront, go to sorority parties, drink a lot, have fun. After a few days of this, my friend says, “Hey, why don’t you take the bus and head to the French Quarter? You’re gonna like it.”
“What’s the French Quarter?” I ask. (Remember, I’m from New Jersey.)
“Ohhh, I get it. You met a girl. You want me to get out of your hair. Okay, sure, I’ll go.”
I pay the $30, take the bus, and it takes me there.
The moment my foot hits the sidewalk, that’s it:
I’m home. I know I’m home. I just know it.
It’s so beautiful. All the artists are on the fence, painting. I’ve got my dulcimer with me in my backpack. I see all kinds of people. I’m really having a great time. I can’t believe it, but the weather’s still hot.
I’m walking along and I want to get a 7Up. I see this bar called The Wrong Place Saloon at 1204 North Rampart.
I look at the sign and say to myself, “Yeah, I’m badass, I’m a Marine, I don’t give a shit about nothing. I’m going to this bar to get a 7Up.”
It’s dark in there. I can barely see the stool.
I sit down and say, “Can I get a 7Up?”
The bartender doesn’t turn around. Nothing. Crickets.
I ask again. Nothing.
My eyes are getting used to the dim and now, I can see the room. I look around. This really is the wrong place. You should not be in this place. It’s a sailor’s bar. Everyone in there looks like they have a parrot on their shoulder, a peg leg, a hook for a hand. Everyone in there is like 7 feet tall and they’re all 60, 70 years old.
Holy shit, I’m in a pirate’s den! It was like I was in Star Wars and landed at the bar Chalmun’s Cantina on the desert planet Tatooine. I think next I’ll see someone with three heads speaking some alien language.
I clear my throat and try one more time.
“Hey, can I have a 7Up?”
Some guy taps me on the shoulder. I turn around. Standing over me is the biggest, meanest, piratey man. “You’re in my seat, boy,” he says.
“Right,” I say. “You’re correct about that.”
I take three steps toward the door, making a quick exit.
I open the door, and the New Orleans sun floods in. Now I can really see I had come to the wrong place. I could have had my ass beat.
I close the door and stand outside for a minute.
What flashes through my mind are the people I know back home. People working a horrible job at a box factory or a plastic plant. They live in a high rise and fight traffic every morning. People actually live that life.
I could end up living that life.
And then I think of these guys, on the other side of the wall from me.
To my surprise, my thoughts come, unbidden.
I want to be one of those guys.
And,
I’m never going back to New Jersey.
Minutes later, I walk from The Wrong Place to Jackson Square. I play my dulcimer.
Amzie Adams at the 1969 Love In in Jackson Square. Photograph by Michael P. Smith ©Historic New Orleans Collection, 2007.0103.1.115.4
There’s this old Black guy with a weird white hat on and he’s playing a steel guitar. He calls himself Babe.
“Hey dude,” he says, “Do you want to sit down and play with me?” And I look at him and said, “You’ve got to be kidding me. I mean, look at you, you know what you’re doing. I’m just playing this stupid dulcimer blablabla.”
“Just sit down,” he says. “We’ll get some people over here.”
“All right, okay,” I say.
I sit down and he starts playing. We both start playing and man, we start playing like a house on fire!
“How can we do this?” I think. This is crazy. I hardly ever play with anyone except other dulcimer players. And it’s just crazy, it’s going really well. People are walking into Jackson Square. Babe jumps up and throws the guitar behind his head, still playing.
Then he begins, “Oh when the saints, go marchin in . . . “
I’m sitting there playing away.
As soon as he’s got a crowd, he takes his guitar on his lap and he just beats it.
He motions to the crowd. “You see this? It’s all steel. If I hit you with it, it’s gonna hurt.” People get the idea. He has a whole rap. “We take food stamps, we take 10 cent pieces, we wanna eat.”
I’m making money, man, I’m having fun, this is great – a lot better than going to The Wrong Place, hello-o!
So we stop and take a break and we talk.
I say, “Dude, how did you even imagine that we could play together?”
He goes, “I heard you playing. You’re playing an open G. I play an open G.”
So it was a natural thing; it was gonna work no matter what you do.
I was stunned. “You knew that from hearing me?”
“Yes,” he said.
That’s why Babe Stovall asked me to sit and play with him.
Sadly, this album is no longer available, but you can still hear Babe on YouTubeWe started going to all the bars to play. Back then, in 1964, there were Beatnik bars, there were hippie bars, there were Black bars, there were white bars – and we would go to all of them and play together.
When I would go into a Black bar, they’d go, “What are you doing here, boy?” I’d go, “Can I get a 7Up?” – you know, my old 7Up line.
They’d say, “No, I mean what are you doing here?”
I didn’t realize, being from Jersey. I didn’t realize segregation.
I’d say, “I’m with Babe, we’re gonna play.”
“Oh, you get a rum and Coke.” That’s what they told me.
So I’d get my rum and Coke and we would play. Then, we’d see a Beatnik bar, we’d go in there. There was this place called The Outsider on Decatur Street and La Forêt on Camp Street.
Gypsy Lou Webb, artist and publisher of Loujon Press and Amzie, by Amzie, circa 2016. Read a 1995 interview with Gypsy Lou Webb in our archives.
My Christmas break ended. Fast forward through a life detour that took me back to the Marine base. I got married, I was a millionaire, I lived in New York, I hung out with Andy Warhol.
By 1969, I returned to New Orleans.
The Wrong Place was still around. By then, it had become a hippie bar. And once again, I walked through its door, this time to play music.
So went the beginning of the next six decades of my life, living in my chosen hometown, in my chosen neighborhood.
I’m home.
Thank you.
Self-portrait of Amzie four or five years ago