“If you're lucky enough to be here . . . you're lucky enough” is the saying on the beer koozies for sale casually displayed across the bar at Vaughan's Lounge. Vaughan's sits on the corner of Lesseps and Dauphine in the residential Bywater neighborhood of New Orleans’ Ninth Ward. It is often described as a “dive bar” but also functions as a music venue, sports bar, dance club, or an extension of your living room if you live nearby. Vaughan's was established as a bar by Weebo and Laurel Vaughan in 1959 and has been owned by Cindy Wood since 1981. She continues to run the cash-only establishment with “Big Chris” Songy, her partner and a Ninth Ward native. Although Vaughan's is many things for many people, it is most famously the place to be for live music on Thursday nights. Corey Henry and Tremé Funktet have been the resident Thursday night band since 2013, only stopping out of necessity during the height of the pandemic. The Funktet, voted New Orleans’ “Best Funk Band,” offers a soulful, high-energy mix of funk, brass, R&B, jam rock, and a little hip-hop. The contemporary sound is perfect for this late-night show, which starts around 10 p.m. and keeps the crowd grooving until 2 a.m. Although the Funktet focuses on genre-bending originals, they still remain anchored in a traditional New Orleans sound, with a heavy emphasis on second-line-inspired brass leads and an energy that will get you bouncin’. The space of Vaughan's offers an intimate setting for this dance party. The seven-plus member band plays right on the dimly lit dancefloor, so closely intertwined with the crowd that you may have to dodge Henry's trombone while you're dancing. Before Henry, Kermit Ruffins held the Thursday night residency for twenty years. There is loving debate about who put who on the map—did Ruffins make Vaughan's? Or did Vaughan's make Ruffins? Clearly, they make each other. Vaughan's exemplifies the reciprocal relationship between musicians and bars in New Orleans.The walls of Vaughan's are covered in pictures of famous musicians, both local and not, with photos of favorite regulars, past bartenders, and passed on loved ones mixed in. Customers often ask, “Have all of these musicians played here?” Bartenders answer, “Yes. . . . Well . . . if they didn't play here, they've definitely been here before.” This is mostly true. Most of the musicians pictured on the wall have played here, whether it was a surprise sit-in with the resident brass band or for a special performance. Some portraits are in question, like Mick Jagger. So, bartenders (including myself) continue to produce the lore by saying a mostly true “yes.”The walls are also covered in elegant antebellum-styled wallpaper left over from when filmmakers shot Queen Sugar at the bar. When asked about it, staff proudly tells people how it was “part of the set design for Queen Sugar and they let us keep it. . . . They paid us all to close for the day!” There are also set design remnants from when HBO's Tremé filmed here, like the windows covering the poker machines. On the ceiling, there are colorful Mexican papel picado flags. Wood had these commissioned from her friends in Mexico to say “Vaughan's Lounge.” When the handmade flags arrived at the bar, they had been misspelled and read, “Vaughan's Loonge.” This error was comically embraced, and the flags were hung throughout the entire bar anyway. Now, the story of the misspelling and “Vaughan's Loonge” has become a part of the bar's image, and pictures of the flags have been used on greeting cards and shot glasses.This assemblage of fabricated and authentic cultural representation speaks not only to the aesthetic of Vaughan's, but the aesthetic of a New Orleans brand of “authenticity.”1 Umberto Eco says that “New Orleans knows its own fakes and historicizes them,” blurring the lines between historical, exaggerated, and fabricated.2 Vaughan's exemplifies this and offers a space to negotiate what it means to “be real” in a city that celebrates its cultural histories and also capitalizes off of them.3Vaughan's is a proud place—proud of its role in the production of New Orleans music culture and community. Proud of its inclusive politics and its diverse clientele. Proud of its scrapbook walls, dusty floors, and misspelled flags. It has been made and remade through the participation of neighborhood regulars, tourists, bartenders, and musicians. But, how did Vaughan's come to be a renowned music house that draws visitors from all over the world? I have been tending bar at Vaughan's for more than six years, and I still have a hard time differentiating between facts and lore regarding the bar's history. Did all the musicians pictured on the wall really play here? Who originally started making the famous red beans, Chris or Kermit? Is the bar dog, El Chapo, a pure Chihuahua or a Rat Terrier mix? Who won the mud wrestling match, Slippery Subaru (aka bartender Suzie Brown) or Slimy Sylvia (bar owner Cindy Wood)? Did Wood really spend three months in a women's prison in Kenya?I recently sat down with Wood to clarify some of the history for this article. We talked for hours over spicy margaritas while watching the Pelicans game. Here is the story.Vaughan's Lounge was established in 1959 by Weebo and Laurel Vaughan (hence the name). Before that, the building had been a corner grocery store serving a primarily Italian and German working-class neighborhood. The Vaughans’ ownership ended when Weebo died suddenly in a fishing accident, so Laurel collected the insurance money and sold the bar. But then, years later, Weebo miraculously returned! Turns out, he was never dead. Cindy had the opportunity to tell this story to Weebo's nieces once when they were visiting the city. “Sounds like Uncle Weebo,” they said. Lee Guillory was next to own the bar and ran it for seven years. During that time, Wood, a self-proclaimed “ex-blue blood from Baltimore,” moved into the house across the street. Guillory was sick and dying of cancer. On his deathbed, he married his girlfriend and bartender Ellen, leaving her Vaughan's. Wood and her friend Robyn Halverson acquired the bar from Miss Ellen in 1981 through a series of sensational events. Wood starts the story by saying, “All I wanted was banana trees, and I ended up with a bar.”Wood and her “baby daddy” had recently moved into the house across from Vaughan's on Dauphine. They were both banquet waiters at the Fairmont Hotel and did not have much money. On a hot summer day in 1981, Wood realized the front window of her house was missing an awning and “the morning sun was so bad.” Her solution was to plant banana trees for shade, but she needed permission from the owner of the house next door. Her other neighbors, BooBoo and Big Daddy (“Yats.4 Real yats who drank everyday of their lives.”), gave her a tip that Miss Ellen, the owner of Vaughan's, also owned the house next door. When Wood approached Miss Ellen for permission to plant the trees, she said, “No. I'm moving to Puerto Rico and I don't want to do anything.” Miss Ellen, who was in her seventies at the time, had been swept off her feet by Angel, a twenty-five-year-old Puerto Rican sailor. He convinced her to sell everything, take the money, and run away with him. Miss Ellen had not listed the properties yet, so Wood called up Halverson: “Come over here quick! Let me get you these listings before she finds someone else.” The neighborhood feared that poor Miss Ellen was being taken advantage of since “Angel was a real hustler.” Halverson had the idea to buy the properties with a five-year balloon note so that if anything went wrong, Miss Ellen would have something to come back to.A year and a half later, Wood got a call at 1 a.m. from a frantic Miss Ellen: “Cindy! You gotta help me. I'm in a jail in Puerto Rico. I shot Angel!” Once Angel had used Miss Ellen's money to build a house, he “started bringing all these whores home, so Miss Ellen shot him in the ass.” She did not have enough funds for a lawyer, so Halverson and Wood took out a bank loan and sent her the money. Miss Ellen returned to New Orleans and sold the five-year balloon note to Halverson and Wood. Halverson didn't care to run a bar—she just wanted the depreciation on the building and to drink for free. “The business is yours,” she told Wood. Forty years later, this is still the arrangement. “Who knew that forty years later we were still gonna have this place; we didn't even know if we were gonna live that long. . . . There was no plan!”The meaning of Vaughan's, as a place, is made through the retelling of this story and others like it. This story also provides a picture of the early clientele of the bar: working-class neighbors, seaman from the nearby port, and “yats, real yats.” This story also exemplifies a type of way that exchanges can happen in New Orleans: casually, between friends and neighbors, with a handshake, an “I gotchu,” and an expectation that you really do have each other's backs.A lot has changed about Vaughan's since Cindy Wood acquired the bar.Bars, as social spaces, have the potential to facilitate interaction across many differences. Wood has intended to do just that. She and her friends’ left-leaning politics have become a part of its reputation. Vaughan's now sports a series of gay pride flags outside as well as a life-size cardboard cutout of Vice President Kamala Harris, which often gets twirled around during dance parties. These aesthetic political allegiances have added to the meaning of Vaughan's and are a signal to newcomers for what kind of space they are in. One time I had a woman come in and say, “I heard this was a lesbian bar, where the ladies at?” These political and lifestyle affiliations do not necessarily dissuade differently opinionated people from coming in. You can still expect to walk into a lively political debate between daytime regulars who otherwise would not seek each other out but who have found themselves friends through sitting at the bar together. Local filmmaker and beloved regular Lily Keber5 puts it like this: What I love about Vaughan's is that it's equally a Black bar, a White bar, a gay bar, a straight bar. It's for old folks and young folks, for locals and for tourists. There aren't many places that manage to pull off being authentically welcoming to such a wide cross section of people.Keber directed and produced the documentary Bayou Maharaja (2013) about famous jazz pianist James Booker, and the film poster hangs high above the beer cooler. The making of this film has also become part of the lore of the bar.In the early 2000s, Keber was bartending at Vaughan's and was impressed at the music literacy of the clientele: People would be here talkin’ about Mac and Irma and Allen, but you had to know that Mac was Dr. John and Irma is Irma Thomas. . . . The caliber of musical literacy that all these “bar flies” had, the density and level and the love of the music that the people had here . . . it was like no bar I'd ever been to. . . . It's beautiful.Keber first heard James Booker on the jukebox at Vaughan's. After getting more information from the regulars, she also learned that the deer head hanging above the garbage can wearing a star-studded eye patch was a reference to Booker. Her interest was piqued, and she set out on a four-year-long documentary journey that culminated in the award-winning film Bayou Maharajah. This is an example of how Vaughan's is not only a place to consume music but a place to engage with the (re)production of New Orleans music culture.Over the years, Vaughan's has hosted resident musicians and special event performances. The first performer to play regularly was Sandy Hanson, a tenant across the street. Hanson was a piano player and also worked at K-Paul's restaurant in the French Quarter. In the late 1980s, Wood got a piano for the bar, and Hanson started playing every Wednesday night. The whole K-Paul's restaurant crew would come out to see her and “it was kinda low-key . . . like a family night,” Wood says.What started as a lounge hosting low-key piano nights soon became one of the city's most renowned neighborhood music houses when Kermit Ruffins started playing there on Thursday nights. When Ruffins's first CD World on a String came out in 1993, “Big Chris” Songy heard it on the radio and decided to put it on the bar's jukebox. At the time, Wood's father, “Daddio,” also worked at the bar. Until then, he never played the jukebox, but he loved Ruffins's World on a String, and “it was the only thing he played; I never saw him play anything else,” says Wood. When Daddio's seventieth birthday rolled around, Wood decided that she had to get Ruffins to come play his party.Wood didn't know Ruffins then, but she knew he was playing a regular gig at the Louisiana Music Factory on Decatur Street. She found him there and asked him to play for her father's party, offering him a check on the spot as a guarantee. He agreed. The party was a success. When Daddio walked in, Ruffins started playing “Happy Birthday,” and Daddio stood in the front of the band with all his French Quarter friends and celebrated. Throughout the night, Ruffins and Daddio bantered until they realized that they had already met years earlier. Daddio used to bartend at the Alpine at a time when Ruffins and “Lil’ Jerry” Anderson would busk on Jackson Square as kids. Since they were out there every day, Daddio let them keep their instruments in the storeroom and smoke weed on the back patio. The reunion between Daddio and Ruffins was so sweet that Ruffins asked Wood, “Man this is so great, can I have a gig here once a week?” To which Wood replied, “Well sure, why not? I don't have a license, but I guess we can do it until we get caught.” And they did, for twenty years. Within the first year, Thursday night at Vaughan's became a popular spot for tourists and locals alike. Other musicians started popping up after their gigs to sit in with Ruffins and the band, which then made Thursday night at Vaughan's a destination for local musicians. During Ruffins's time at Vaughan's, he recorded the album, Live at Vaughan's (2007).6 Later, HBO's Tremé referenced Thursday night at Vaughan's with Ruffins. The album and the HBO reference made Thursday night at Vaughan's even more widely known. To this day, I still get weekly phone calls: “Hey, is Kermit playin’ tonight?”Ruffins had a long and fruitful tenure at Vaughan's. The relationship between the bar and the musician put them both on the New Orleans music map. Ruffins went on to take over Ernie K-Doe's Mother-in-Law Lounge on Claiborne Avenue, and he is often busy touring or hosting cookouts. In 2013, the Vaughan's Thursday night music torch was passed to trombonist and band leader Corey Henry and his Tremé Funktet.Henry got his start playing music as a kid at age ten, and at sixteen, he joined the Tremé Brass Band, the band of Benny Jones, his uncle. He later led the Little Rascals Brass Band, a local favorite for the second lines. At eighteen, he joined Ruffins's band and then later played with both Galactic and Rebirth Brass Band, winning him a Grammy in 2012. When Ruffins was phasing out of Vaughan's, Henry had already been playing the regular Thursday gig as his trombonist. Wood and Songy had gotten to know Henry over the years and had fallen in love with the energy and sound of the Tremé Funktet. When they needed a band to fill the Thursday spot, Henry was their first choice. He was nervous to accept at first, not believing that Ruffins would ever give it up, but “I made him say yes,” Wood brags. Henry has played every Thursday night for nine years, requiring occasional fill-ins when he tours and taking a forced hiatus during the height of pandemic regulations. But as of spring 2022, he is back at it.Ruffins offered a more traditional New Orleans popular jazz experience and played many hit singles like “World on a String” (Harold Arlen and Ted Koehler, 1932) and “If You Want Me to Stay” (Sly Stone, 1973). Henry and the Tremé Funktet offer a more contemporary music experience with a hybrid of funk, soul, brass, and jam rock. In 2019, they were voted the city's “Best Funk Band.” On Thursday nights, they play a mix of originals like “Tell Ya Mamma Nem,” “Muddy Waters,” and “Baby C'mon” while still indulging in some beloved classics like “Fire on the Bayou” (the Meters, 1975) and “Feel Like Funkin’ It Up” (Rebirth Brass Band, 1989). The band is made up of accomplished musicians, including trumpeter Leon “Kid Chocolate” Brown, guitarist June Yamagishi, saxophonist Quay Frazier, keyboardist Beck Burger, and drummer Walter Lundy. Past members also include violinist Donald Surtain Jr., guitarist Danny Abel, and Travis “Trumpet Black” Hill. Hill also led the band Trumpet Black and the Heart Attacks, which would cover for the Tremé Funktet whenever Henry was touring with other bands. Hill passed away tragically in 2015, and now the Funktet honors his memory by playing a cover of his song, “Trumpets Not Guns,” at every performance. In addition to their regular members, they are known to have musicians come through and sit in, many of whom are coming straight from their other gigs. This has included saxophonist Khris Royal (of Khris Royal and Dark Matter); vocalist Cole Williams (of the Cole Williams Band); trombonist Troy “Trombone Shorty” Andrews; trumpeter Derrick “Kabuki” Shezbie; “Big Chief” Alfred Doucett; emcee, rapper, and producer Kimberly Rivers-Roberts aka “Queen Black Kold Madina”; Greg Thomas (of the Funkadelics); and the list goes on. Part of the allure of music at Vaughan's is that you never know who might show up to sit in.Thursday and Friday nights at Vaughan's aren't just about the music; they are also about the food, the ambiance, and the regular cast of characters. When you first walk up, you will be greeted with the savory smoke coming from Tasha Ambo's food pop-up, “Tasha and Kendell's BBQ and Soul Food.” Ambo had been a regular customer at Vaughan's for years. When the pandemic hit, she needed another source of income, so she asked if she could start doing a BBQ pop-up outside the bar. Wood and Songy agreed to it, and Ambo has been poppin’ up on Thursdays, Fridays, and weekends ever since.Before you enter the bar, you will also pass Kimberly Rivers Roberts's (aka Miss Kim Kold Madina) art pop-up, where she sells Ninth Ward shirts, locally made candles, and her famous glitter lipstick. Roberts is also promoting the film Trouble the Water, a documentary about surviving Hurricane Katrina, which she and her husband Scott are featured in and helped produce. Scott will be at the front door of the bar checking IDs, sipping a margarita, and keeping an eye on things outside. If you are lucky, “Big Chris” Songy will have decided to make his famous red beans or boil crawfish that night. DJ Keith will be spinning some classics to get the crowd warmed up. If he plays “Cupid Shuffle,” it will turn into a full-blown line dance party in the street. As a way to cope with the pandemic, Vaughan's started hosting regular music events outside. This provided a safer way for locals to get their music fix while also providing much-needed gig opportunities for musicians during a time when it was nearly impossible to play indoors. The outdoor music has continued since, and now, in addition to Thursday nights, you can catch the Tremé Brass Band with “Uncle” Benny Jones busking across the street from 5 to 8 p.m.Besides the regular music schedule, Vaughan's will host special events for holidays and festivals. These events have included performances from bands that transcend the traditional scope of New Orleans jazz genres, including rock and rap artist Tiana Hux Dews as Malevitas, alt-rock band Morning 40 Federation, singer-songwriter Mia Borders, the eclectic Bonerama with Craig Klein, and our very own Miki Fuji. Fuji moved to New Orleans from Japan in the 1990s when she was seventeen and began bartending at Vaughan's soon after. She has worked on and off at Vaughan's ever since. Fuji is also a jazz singer and occasionally performs at the bar with her daughter Mico Williams, an up-and-coming R&B soul singer.Vaughan's also hosts monthly drag performances produced by Coca J. Mesa, an annual Oscar viewing party (dress accordingly), political debate watch parties, and of course Saints games on Sundays. The bar used to host weekly Mardi Gras Indian practices, which Wood misses and recalls as being very fun. Past bartender and documentary filmmaker Sarah K. Borealis coordinates cultural events related to her film projects, like her Path to Stone Soup pop-up, where chefs from Oaxaca come and prepare traditional stone soup accompanied by music and a screening of her documentary. If a bartender or regular has an idea for a party, maybe a birthday, a potluck, or a fundraiser, it is likely that Wood will let them use the bar. This adds to the sense of familial rootedness that can be felt at Vaughan's, like an extension of your living room.7The jukebox has played a major role in facilitating music and community production at Vaughan's.8 First, it was how Kermit Ruffins was originally heard by Daddio, which is why Wood asked him to play at the bar in the first place. Second, it was how Keber first heard James Booker, which lead her to making an award-winning documentary about music in New Orleans. Third, it now houses Corey Henry's breakout album Lapeitah (2016), which Vaughan's plays often and proudly. Last, and most obvious, it does what all good jukeboxes do: it facilitates spontaneous dance parties. One week, the jukebox was smashed during a break-in and was a reminder of the city's crime, poverty, and vulnerabilities. Songy was quick to get the jukebox back in working order—nothing a little packing tape couldn't fix. Soon, everyone at Vaughan's was dancing again. This incident could be used as a metaphor for New Orleans’ “resiliency” in disasters. But, the narrative of urban “resiliency” has been rightfully critiqued by scholars for dismissing political corruption, racial inequality, uneven distribution of aid, and ongoing national exploitation of southern resources, including cultural ones.9 So, instead, I like to think of it as a metaphor for our reliance on the music, the reciprocity between bars and musicians in this city, and the debt that is owed to New Orleans’ cultural producers for keeping the city grooving, even through hard times.My interview with Cindy Wood began as a way for me to clear up some dates and names, but it turned into hours of “oh and then this one time . . . ” Stories that had us all laughing, crying, toasting lost loved ones, and gathering people to share their perspective. I struggled to pick which funny memories to include, which musicians to name drop, and which events to summarize. This exemplifies another quality of New Orleans that Eco talks about: “New Orleans is not in the grip of neurosis of a denied past; it passes out memories generously like a great lord; it doesn't have to pursue ‘the real thing.’”10 Vaughan's does just that. Between the walls, the stories we tell, and the activities surrounding the jukebox, the bar is rich in memories and invites visitors to be in on the jokes. Vaughan's has come to be a beloved neighborhood watering hole as well as a renowned music house. The place and the music make each other.11 After six years of tending bar here, I can honestly say that I feel “lucky enough.”*To clarify some of the hearsay: No, Mick Jagger did not play music at Vaughan's, but he did visit the bar while he was in the city performing at Jazz Fest. All the musicians pictured on the walls have in fact been to the bar and most have played there. The famous red beans have always been, and still are, made by “Big Chris” Songy. El Chapo is a Chihuahua-terrier mix, not a pure bred. The jury is still out on who won the mud wrestling match. And yes, Cindy Wood did spend three months imprisoned in Kenya in the 1970s (a story that cannot be written for legal purposes).