Biographer of geniuses Walter Isaacson on the songs and city that made him

Walter Isaacson  00:01

He said, 'Look, there are two types of people [who] come out of Louisiana: preachers and storytellers.' He said, 'For heaven's sake, be a storyteller. The world's got too many preachers.' 

Sophie Bearman  00:10

From the San Francisco Standard, I'm Sophie Bearman, and this is a special episode of Life in Seven Songs. In June of 2025, we recorded our very first live taping of the show at the Aspen Ideas Festival, which brings brilliant minds from around the world to discuss the ideas that will shape tomorrow and help us understand today. So over the next two episodes, you're going to hear our show before a live audience. This week, someone very familiar with that Colorado stage: the celebrated biographer Walter Isaacson. In addition to serving as the president of the Aspen Institute, he's been the editor of TIME Magazine, the chairman of CNN. He's written award-winning biographies of some of the world's greatest and most complicated thinkers of our time, past and present. People like Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein, Steve Jobs, and Elon Musk. He's made a career out of shining a light on the lives of visionaries, and generally, he prefers to keep the spotlight on them and not on himself. So this interview is a special glimpse into Walter's personal story through the seven songs that he says shaped him. And most of those songs have to do with a special place he grew up: New Orleans. Also, you'll hear Walter refer to 'Cathy' a few times. That's his wife, who was in the front row for the live taping. 

Walter Isaacson  01:54

Ah, yes.

Sophie Bearman  01:55

Good to have you here.

Walter Isaacson  01:55

Well, this is pretty wonderful, and we've curated it to be kind of New Orleans, which is my life. So, I hope that's okay with you, Sophie?

Sophie Bearman  02:01

Oh, yes. Yes, exactly. I think six of the seven songs are either of or from New Orleans, which — 

Walter Isaacson  02:03

Yeah, and they all have a bit of a connection. 

Sophie Bearman  02:04

It's going to be a party. Well, I'm going to tell you a quick story. You and I went to the same college. We both went to Harvard. I think just a few years apart, even. You came to speak — it must have been 2012 — to talk about storytelling and writing. And I remember a piece of advice that you gave. I mean, it really stuck with me. It was, 'Tell the story from the beginning.'

Walter Isaacson  02:29

Narrative. 'Let me tell you a story.' 

Sophie Bearman  02:31

What's better? 

Walter Isaacson  02:32

If it's good enough for the Bible. It's good enough for us, right?

Sophie Bearman  02:34

Exactly. So I thought we should test it out. And then obviously, if the conversation is a bust, we know who to blame, right? So let's start at the beginning with your first song: Brother John / Iko Iko.

Walter Isaacson  02:45

You know, I grew up in the heart of New Orleans, and there was a street called Valence Street, still is. And it was an interesting street. It was Black and white, rich and poor, the most diverse street you can imagine. And at one end, the Neville Brothers were all growing up. I'm sure most of you who love music love all the Nevilles, many generations of Nevilles. And when they were very young, even before The Meters, they were in a marching group called The Wild Tchoupitoulas. But right on that block, too, was a club called Valencia, which was for the preppiest, Mardi Gras, elite, white kids, but they were right together. And so you spent time sort of sharing the music, sharing the common ground of Valence Street. And even with this song, you know, which is about 'my flag boy, your flag boy,' and they meet and they march, it's about different groups meeting and how creativity comes from such diversity. And some of you may know about the Mardi Gras Indians, the Black Masking Indians of Mardi Gras. They're from different parts of the city, but each has tribes in the parts of the city. And on Mardi Gras, very early in the morning, they put on these huge regalias, and they march with a sort of beat. We used to get up early Mardi Gras morning, very young, and take our bicycles. What you would do is you'd try to hear the songs. You'd try to hear them in the distance. And to me, it sort of became a metaphor for being curious: exploring, hearing mysterious things. Riding your bike towards it, to see what it was like. And they'd always be singing Brother John, which was one of the leaders of the Mardi Gras Indians, and Iko Iko. But there was also a group there called the Dixie Cups. 

Sophie Bearman  04:40

Yep.

Walter Isaacson  04:40

Also on Valence Street. And the best rendition of the song is the Dixie Cups and the Neville Brothers.

Sophie Bearman  04:49

And they join up together. Let's take a listen to that.

Music  04:52

[Brother John / Iko Iko by the The Neville Brothers ft. The Dixie Cups, Family and Friends plays]

Walter Isaacson  05:16

And you can hear the two-four sound, which is the earliest parts of jazz, which come from these marching groups. 

Sophie Bearman  05:23

Tell us a little bit more about your childhood. Who raised you, what it was like growing up there?

Walter Isaacson  05:29

You know, I write about really creative people, and one thing they have in common is they're all kind of misfits. They don't fit in. Leonardo: growing up illegitimate, and distracted, and gay, and left handed in a small village of Vinci. Or Einstein, growing up Jewish in Germany. And that kind of drives them. I have the good fortune to be on the other side, sort of the observer, because I was raised by the two smartest, nicest people I know — my parents — in the wonderful city with wonderful friends. And so I had this magical childhood, growing up listening to the music and the street music.

Sophie Bearman  05:29

Let's speak about that. Because, you know, in many of your biographies, you talk about how your subjects battle demons. And those demons spur them to become what they become. Did you have any demons? 

Walter Isaacson  06:08

Well, I wish I could sort of summon up a demon to make myself more interesting. Maybe that's why I'm more of an observer than a man in the arena. There's one thing I learned though, growing up. And Michael Lewis, who grew up with me — some of you may know him, Liar’s Poker and all — grew up in the neighborhood. Like you, he points out he's a few years younger, but we still went to school together. He said that those people who wake up every morning and realize how lucky they are — and carry a badge of gratitude there — are the happiest campers around. And I think that I've always tried to remember — and when Cathy and I go back to New Orleans — try to remember, 'Okay.' And look, it's true of everybody in this room: We were just fortunate. And sometimes we may say, 'Okay, we've got demons,' whatever, but just remember the gratitude part. The waking up every morning and thinking you're lucky so that you can make sure that you can help others have some of the luckiness you happen to get.

Sophie Bearman  07:24

Your next song, it's another New Orleans institution. Sweet Emma Barrett and her Dixieland Boys singing When the Saints Go Marching In from 1961. So if you close your eyes, where does it take you?

Walter Isaacson  07:37

Well, to Preservation Hall, of course. Which is where Sweet Emma Barrett and her band and others play. Preservation Hall is right in the heart of the French Quarter, and we could go there because it didn't serve drinks. So at age fourteen, fifteen, we — Tom, and Jimmy, and my friends — we'd all go to Preservation Hall, sit on the front row. It only had maybe 50 seats. And Sweet Emma Barrett was a piano player. She was misnamed as her nickname because she wasn't all that sweet. But the band? It was Percy Humphrey and Willie Humphrey, two brothers on clarinet, trumpet. And one of the things if you've been to — most people have probably been to Preservation Hall — but even back then, they had a sign right behind the band for when you wanted to make a request. And it was $1 in the hat if you wanted to request a traditional jazz song like St. James Infirmary or Basin Street Blues, and then $2 if you wanted to do something that wasn't really traditional jazz — like some song from Oklahoma, and they'd roll their eyes. But it then said, 'And The Saints: $5' because they were so sick of everybody always requesting The Saints. 

Sophie Bearman  08:01

They didn't want to hear it. 

Walter Isaacson  08:02

They made it a money-making engine. So when I was thinking of 'What song do I want?' I said, 'Well, it's just too trite to do the one you have to pay five bucks for.' But The Saints, it just became the theme song of New Orleans. I mean, not only our football team, but whenever I'd hear that song played slowly sometimes after the hurricane, you know, it just brings you back home.

Music  09:13

[When the Saints go Marching in by Sweet Emma Barrett "The Bell Gal" And Her Dixieland Boys plays]

Sophie Bearman  09:25

There she is.

Walter Isaacson  09:26

There she is.

Sophie Bearman  09:35

She sounds like a woman in control.

Walter Isaacson  09:37

Oh, she was definitely in control. And in a band like that — that doesn't have a bass drum when it's at the Hall — so with her left hand, she had to do the back beat. And...

Sophie Bearman  09:51

Wow.

Walter Isaacson  09:51

So, sometimes, when people get off the beat — there'd be a tuba player — she'd just turn around and bark at them, because she wanted to be in control of this song. But in the end, whenever you want to evoke a spirit of New Orleans, I think When The Saints is it. Obviously, Louis Armstrong does a very famous version, I think in the late 1920s. And different people have covered it. But in my mind's eye, I just remember being a 15-year-old sitting there on that front — on the floor, because you couldn't take up one of the bench seats — and watching Sweet Emma play The Saints. 

Sophie Bearman  10:29

So, as a teen, you're listening to the Dixie Cups and Sweet Emma. You're also trying to figure out what you want to do with your life. And I know that one of your earliest inspirations was a novelist, Walker Percy, who gave you some very good advice, sort of like you gave me. 

Walter Isaacson  10:29

It was the one I gave you.

Sophie Bearman  10:45

Oh, was it one and the same?

Walter Isaacson  10:45

Well, it's one and the same, which is, I never knew what — we used to call him Uncle Walker — did. He was the... one of my best friend's uncles. And we'd go to...

Sophie Bearman  10:46

Can I just say, you would go over to flirt with his daughter, Ann. 

Walter Isaacson  11:00

Well, we'd go water ski with Ann, who was interesting. She's our age, and she was deaf, but she sign language and lip read well. And so he got me thinking of the meaning of language and how you label things with words. And...

Sophie Bearman  11:13

Hm, that's interesting.

Walter Isaacson  11:14

Walker Percy, before he was a novelist, wrote about the meaning of language. And that became something I was interested in, but I couldn't figure out what Uncle Walker did. And I finally said to Ann, 'What does your dad do? He's always sitting on the dock, you know, in the [inaudible], where they had their house, a bayou, and eating Hog Head cheese and drinking bourbon. He doesn't seem to work.' And people called him Dr. Percy, but he wasn't a practicing doctor. And she said, 'Well, he's a writer.' And I said, 'Writer?' You know, I knew you could be an engineer like my dad, or a fisherman or a doctor, but — and so, finally, I read The Moviegoer, which came out right around the time we're talking about, 1961 or so, and went, 'Wow, I get it. You can be a writer.' And I said to Walker Percy, 'You know, you seem to be teaching a lot of things. It's almost had religious elements in it. What are you trying to, you know, preach there?' And he said, 'Look, there are two types of people [who] come out of Louisiana: preachers and storytellers.' He said, 'For heaven's sake, be a storyteller. The world's got too many preachers.' And so when you're trying to convey something, it's the advice I said to you. The magic words are: let me tell you a story. Can you make it chronological? 

Sophie Bearman  12:28

Let's go to your next song. It's Irma Thomas' It's Raining, which I believe you saw her perform live around 1970. Why does this song make your list?

Walter Isaacson  12:38

Well, you know Irma Thomas's the soul queen of New Orleans. I thought she was one of the world's great singers, like Aretha Franklin and others. 

Sophie Bearman  12:46

Sure.

Walter Isaacson  12:46

But I realized she was basically a local. Beloved local person, played at every high school prom, every charity thing. In 1970 — I think it was, you can check it — they decided to start with the Jazz Festival in New Orleans. I think only about 400 people showed up. And I remember going to those very first jazz festivals there — for the first two or three years, we're just in this neighborhood park — and the last song, always, on Sunday afternoon, was Irma Thomas. And she always sang, It's Raining, partly because it was almost always raining, you know, at ate… late April in New Orleans, and she did it very soulfully.

Sophie Bearman  13:29

Let's listen to It's Raining by Irma Thomas.

Music  13:32

[It's Raining by Irma Thomas plays]

Walter Isaacson  13:33

Aw, I'm about to cry, man.

Music  13:32

[It's Raining by Irma Thomas plays]

Walter Isaacson  13:36

'Holding you tight / I wish the rain —' Oops, I tried and missed it. 

Sophie Bearman  13:58

I like your singing voice. You know, in an email to me, you said the song was an ode to our resilience.

Walter Isaacson  14:04

You know, It's Raining took on other meanings, too. Not just with Katrina, but when I was growing up, Hurricane Betsy hit, which flooded the city. And so you asked about demons. You asked about growing up. I mean, everybody's got problems and challenges in life. And a metaphor for that is, you know, 'it's raining, and I wish the rain would hurry up,' and it's how you bounce back from... and I guess even the next layer is not how you bounce back from It's Raining, but I know — Cathy will remember — when it starts raining real hard in New Orleans, I say, 'Let's go sit on the porch and watch it.' I mean, I kind of love the — Marie Curie would have called it the ionization of the air — that comes when the air becomes electrified, because you have a thunderstorm.

Sophie Bearman  14:51

I love a summer storm. 

Walter Isaacson  14:52

Yeah, yeah. 

Sophie Bearman  14:53

That catharsis of just...

Walter Isaacson  14:54

Well, it's a catharsis. And so her singing It's Raining, helps you understand, you know, both the storm and the resilience.

Sophie Bearman  15:06

It's time for a quick break. Coming up, Walter shares the story that helped get his beloved city through one of the worst storms in our nation's history. We'll be right back.

Sophie Bearman  15:15

Let's go to your next one. We move from R&B to the Rolling Stones.

Walter Isaacson  15:41

By the way, we're still with R&B. That's the secret.

Sophie Bearman  15:45

Okay. 

Walter Isaacson  15:45

I mean, that's why, you know, suddenly I go away to college, and I realize not all music is funk. You know, Iko Iko to soul and funk, soul, jazz, that rock music has hit. And you know, I loved our local music. But of course, in the late 60s, early 70s, rock is hitting. When I got to college, I had all these roommates who — back then, you had stereo systems, and they'd say, 'Okay, we'll use my speakers. They're the best. Your turntable, this amplifier.' Okay, and I'm like, 'Okay, I have a transistor radio, you know, bought from home.' But the big debate was always 'The Beatles or The Stones?' And I remember asking Steve Jobs — or Steve Jobs asking this when we were talking. And he had all his songs. He played them over and over when he was dying. Is: 'If there was the songs in the vault — and the building catches on fire, and you can save only one set of originals — would you save the Beatles or the Stones or Dylan?' And I ended up being a Stones person, partly because, as you sort of said, I realize it's rhythm and blues. They play in a way that does homage to the blues singers that, especially Mick Jagger and Ron and others in the band, loved. And there was a rebellion, of course, but in the way that I felt more comfortable with, which is a good natured, 'We know this world's a good place, but we're still going to push back a bit.' And the obvious rhythm and blues, but also rebel song — which I think is the greatest rock song ever done — is Sympathy for the Devil. 

Music  17:37

[Sympathy for the Devil by The Rolling Stones plays] 

Sophie Bearman  17:44

I mean, this is a fascinating song, because it's kind of from the perspective of the devil, right? Laying out all of the wrongdoings over time. 

Walter Isaacson  18:05

But it's not just the devil. I mean, as you've heard the line, you know, 'Who killed the Kennedys? After all, it was you and me.' And so, it's understanding — you mentioned the word, ‘demons’ — but those demons that still may be lurking in all of us.

Sophie Bearman  18:19

Absolutely. With your next song, we're going to move forward a lot through time and talk about Katrina. It's Bruce Springsteen's My City of Ruins. You chose a particular performance of it at the 2006 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival.

Walter Isaacson  18:34

Okay. 2006. 

Sophie Bearman  18:35

One year after.

Walter Isaacson  18:36

Right. When we thought the city wasn't coming back. 

Sophie Bearman  18:38

Yep.

Walter Isaacson  18:39

And a couple of things we had to make a deal with the good lord or whatever about, which is, alright, 'We know the city will come back if the Saints win the Super Bowl.' Now, that's a ridiculous thing to ask. Saints don't ever have a winning record, right? And I think we all said, 'We'll never ask for anything else.' So the saints win the Super Bowl. I mean, go figure. You know, we must have had it fixed. But also, Jazz Fest has to come back. And Springsteen came. And at the ver — I'm sorry, I'm choking up here, but — very end of that set, he did City of Ruins. And everybody just, waving the handkerchiefs.

Music  19:46

[My City of Ruins by Bruce Springsteen plays]

Walter Isaacson 19:51

Now, imagine 20,000 people singing that. I knew it: We would come back.

Sophie Bearman  19:52

I can see, it moves —

Walter Isaacson  19:57

I'm sorry. It’s — yeah.

Sophie Bearman  20:01

No, it's — I understand, it's... it was an impossible time.

Walter Isaacson  20:07

Not really. Because, once everybody's singing, 'Rise up.' We were — yeah, and the Saints won — and when the Saints Go Marching In, yeah.

Sophie Bearman  20:20

Your love for New Orleans is coming through so, so strongly. And in 2018, I believe, you moved back.

Walter Isaacson  20:27

I had been asked by the governor, after Katrina, to be the vice chair of the Recovery Authority. And that meant many things, especially bringing back the education system. We weren't just trying to revive the city. We're trying to build the city we wanted to have had, and so we built a new type of school system where parents had choice of any school they wanted to go to. It was very important for us to, you know, not just bring the city back, but have people come back. So that's when I said, 'Okay, I'm going to put down roots and teach at Tulane, where my parents and grandparents all went.' And that's what you do when you, you know, get to a certain stage. David Brooks talks about it, the next mountains of your life. Did you go back to your roots — if you can. I mean, not everybody has a glorious town that was their hometown — but going back to your roots when your roots obviously mean a lot to you. And so, I decided to go teach at the university that had created my parents and grandparents, and to be back in my hometown, even as we kind of wander around and go other places too. 

Sophie Bearman  21:44

It strikes me that a different way of thinking about that is the question of, 'What is my legacy,' in a sense.

Walter Isaacson  21:50

Well, you want to pay it forward — if you've had some gratitude for the things that made you and nurtured you, and for the cradles of creativity that allowed you to be what you were — your way of paying it forward is going back. And I'm not trying to — I am trying to romanticize it, but one shouldn't romanticize it because it's got enormous challenges and inequities of wealth and everything else. And you say, 'Okay, so how do we not just preserve the city, but it's moving it forward and see if there can — you can have preservation and progress.'

Sophie Bearman  22:25

Your next song is Mick Jagger and Irma Thomas.

Walter Isaacson  22:29

Right, you see... that's why...

Sophie Bearman  22:31

Full circle.

Walter Isaacson  22:31

Poor Louis Armstrong, you know, we had — it's hard for him to...

Sophie Bearman  22:35

Time, Time is on My Side. So what's the story with this one?

Walter Isaacson  22:37

So the Rolling Stones were supposed to play jazz fest often — they did it when I was very young. I remember seeing them in the ’70s. But 2024, the Stones are coming back. And to me, this is like everything coming together. Mick Jagger just hit 80, I think, and he's prancing around, doing Sympathy for the Devil, all these songs. It's great. And then at the very end, he said, 'You know, when we were young' — maybe 1964 or something — 'We weren't a big band then. We had never had a number one record, but we were driving around and we heard on the radio this song. And we just loved it, and we said, 'Okay, we're going to record that song.'' And so they record it, and it becomes their first hit in America. Suddenly, they're up there with The Beatles. They got a number one Billboard hit, Time is on My Side. So he tells this story, and he said, 'And I want to bring out the woman who sang that song in the 1960s, when we first heard it.' And they can guess who it was: Irma Thomas comes out. So Irma Thomas, soul queen of New Orleans, who had done that song when they were young. He gets — and he does this duet that — two people in their 80s, but they're prancing on that stage. Same stage that Springsteen had done, 'Rise up, Rise up.' And there's sort of a poignancy — when you get to 80s, maybe even when you get to your 70s — of hearing time is on my side.

Music  23:49

[Time is on My Side by The Rolling Stones and Irma Thomas plays]

Walter Isaacson  24:28

And we didn't know he was gonna bring Irma Thomas on, I mean — 

Sophie Bearman  24:30

Oh my goodness. 

Walter Isaacson  24:30

I mean it was a total surprise — well, surprise the 20,000 of us there.

Sophie Bearman 24:38

And you tweeted, I went back. You did. You said, 'yes it is.'

Walter Isaacson  24:43

I did. Oh, yeah. Time is on my side, yes it is.

Sophie Bearman  24:45

Time is on my side. What, what did you realize? What does it mean to hear that at this point in your life?

Walter Isaacson  24:50

You know, we all go through life, and we've had this chronological journey. As I told you, keep it chronological. Keep a story. And each phase of your life has a different meaning to it. And yet, there are things that connect you back, whether it be hearing Irma Thomas — and by the way, when you heard Irma Thomas now doing 'Yes it is, yes it is, time is —' you know, the refrain with Mick Jagger, you can hear sweet Emma Barrett. I mean, it's the same soulful rhythm and blues, but jazzing it up a bit. And so I think as you go through life, you have to not only relish the different times and also embrace the new phase you're in, so that you're not trying to do the same thing you did in your 30s, but you also have to remember the resonances, the chords that you heard. You know, basically the chords that you first heard in your teens should still resonate when time is on your side.

Sophie Bearman  25:54

Your last song is Jon Batiste's Freedom. 

Walter Isaacson  25:57

Yeah. Of course.

Sophie Bearman  25:58

And, I mean you're a good — of course. You're a good friend of Jon's. Jon got his start, in many ways, I mean, here at Aspen, at least early on.

Walter Isaacson  26:05

Well, we can tell that story. 

Sophie Bearman  26:06

You should.

Walter Isaacson  26:07

Yeah. Jon Batiste was a backup player in a trio for Wynton Marsalis, up at Juilliard. And, I mean, Wynton is sort of the grumpy old uncle, and Jon Batiste is this fresh-faced kid playing this sort of mouth organ, this harmonica. He's 16 or 17, and I run into him and get to talking to him. And of course, you have the name, ‘Batiste.’ There's certain names in New Orleans. The Nevilles, the Batiste, the Baquet's, the Creole who were great in the jazz era. And so I'm saying, okay, 'Was Uncle Earl Batiste, that was your uncle?' You know. So he's from this great tradition. I said, 'Why don't you come out to Aspen? We started this thing called Ideas Fest, and Wynton is coming out.' And so Jon came out. And he did something with just him and Wynton, and we just did it impromptu. We didn't prepare. It was Fourth of July. So Batiste starts with the national anthem. Then I said, 'Okay, let's start with the beginning of jazz. Let's start with the two-four time of the marching bands. Let's then go...' and we went to the plantation blues. I said, 'Okay, play St. James Infirmary. Show me...' And they would — just did it all the way through, till you got through to the modern era of jazz. They're having a great time. And it so happened that the producer for the Colbert Report saw it and says, 'Will you come on this show?' And so he came and he performed on Colbert after which Colbert said, 'Would you consider being the band,' on the new show that he was starting. So I've always felt, you know, a glow whenever I see a smile. And his smile, of course, can light up a room.

Sophie Bearman  27:48

It's infectious. 

Walter Isaacson  27:49

He and Wynton Marsalis both have a ability to combine a whole lot of genres, which is what jazz is about. But what it's — bringing jazz forward. Bringing genres and people and diversity together to create a new type of music. And in these very troubled times when there's such a feel of authoritarianism in the air, the key word you want — as we're about to enter the 250th birthday of our country — the key word you want is 'freedom,' and it's called Freedom.

Music  28:29

[Freedom by Jon Batiste plays]

Walter Isaacson  28:31

You hear the Congo Square drummers.

Sophie Bearman  28:34

Yeah.

Music  28:34

[Freedom by Jon Batiste plays]

Sophie Bearman  28:51

'Free...' Such a celebration, this song.

Walter Isaacson  28:55

Yeah, and that's what it should be. I mean, music is supposed to challenge us, make us understand — Sympathy for the Devil, make us understand, It's Raining — but it's also supposed to be, in the end, the exuberance of it all. And if you want to know why it begins, jazz — with the spirituals of the plantation, in I'll Fly Away and all those songs — is because even in the hardest of times, it's that sense of 'Okay. We can have a sense of freedom, a sense of exuberation, and try to capture the joy even through the troubles.' And so the spirituals do that. Jazz does that. Even rock does it. And then when Jon Batiste brings it all together, it's something like freedom. You say what — you know, I mean, he wins Emmys in every genre. But you know, if you're saying, 'Okay, what genre should Freedom be in?' It's — it doesn't quite fit, but it is who we are as a nation. Which is: different people have come together, and when we're at our best, you know, we're celebrating and having the exhilaration that comes even from the frictions that the diversity brings.

Sophie Bearman  30:13

I'm really serious when I ask this: have you considered writing a book about New Orleans?

Walter Isaacson  30:17

Well, you know...

Sophie Bearman  30:18

'Cause it's a character, right? 

Walter Isaacson  30:21

Yeah, it is a character. It's interesting. Well, first of all: every book I've done about geniuses? Part of it is the cradle of creativity that allows that genius. The greatest of all being Florence, in around 1500. But what happens in Florence? Well, people are coming in from the Ottoman Empire, because the — you know, the — all of the war, the Silk Road is going there. They have the stable currency. Gutenberg's printing press is actually being used there first. And so you have a diverse group of people coming in. There's a cradle of creativity. Same with Philadelphia, when Ben Franklin arrives from a very — more rigid city of Boston, he runs away to go to Philadelphia with his diversity. So there are places like that that become cradles of creativity. That's what'll bring America out of its current crisis. Is all these wonderful localities, whether it's Austin or, you know, New Orleans, or places that do that — Denver now doing it. So, yes, whenever you write about creative people, one of the best supporting characters in it is the venue, and that's, in some cases, New Orleans. I'm thinking of doing something with Terence Blanchard, who's also part of that tradition of New Orleans. A great trumpeter who also has written two operas for the Metropolitan Opera, but plays jazz, written Spike Lee’s scores, grew up in the same neighborhood in New Orleans. So I'd like to do one thing about the city, although that's… that's a little bit more of a complicated project if we get that one underway.

Sophie Bearman  31:59

Well, Walter, all I can say is: we are so lucky for your curiosity, truly. And I suppose we're all lucky for New Orleans then, because it taught you that. So thank you so, so much for sharing your seven songs.

Walter Isaacson  32:34

Oh, thank you, Sophie, appreciate it.

Sophie Bearman  32:36

It was beautiful. Thank you. 

Sophie Bearman  32:39

Life in Seven Songs is a production from the San Francisco Standard. If you liked this episode, make sure you subscribe so you don't miss next week's show: another live taping, this time with NPR journalist Mary Louise Kelly. Her walk-on song is not to be missed. Special thanks to the Aspen Ideas Festival for having us out. Our senior producer is Jasmyn Morris. Our producers are Michelle Lanz, who also mixes the show, Tessa Kramer, and Frank Zhou. Our theme music is by Kate Davis and Zubin Hensler, and Clark Miller created our show art. Our music consultant is Sarah Tembeckjian. Executive Producers are Griffin Gaffney, Jon Steinberg, and me. As always, you can find this guest's full playlist at sf.news/spotify. And on that note, we're going to leave you with one of Walter's songs. This time, sung by his friend, former mayor of New Orleans, Mitch Landrieu, who joined Walter on stage after the live taping. I'm Sophie Bearman, thanks for listening and see you next time.

Walter Isaacson  33:42

Hey, you know, you know Brother John / Iko Iko.

Mitch Landrieu  33:45

Iko Iko. But it's a call and response, because everybody's supposed to participate. So when the Dixie Cups did it, their version went something like this. 'My grandma and your grandma sitting on the bayou / My grandma told your grandma she's going to set your house on fire / You're talking about, hey now.'

Walter Isaacson  34:01

‘Hey now.’

Mitch Landrieu  34:02

'Iko Iko a nae / Chakimo fina a na nae / Chakimo fina nae.'