Doreen Ketchins
speaker
125 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Mar 2025
last heard Mar 2025
Doreen Ketchins’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Oh, yeah. I mean, but we, you know, sometimes we sleep on the spot. I mean, you do what you have to do, you know, and it was the two of us, so it was easier to fight. So, you know, it was kind of set up for victory, you know, as far as, you know, as long as we weren't lazy. And, you know, you had to deal with the... People who, for some reason, they moved to the French Quarter and weren't quiet.
I don't understand that at all. But they called the police. Oh, you mean the people who live. Yeah.
Yeah, man. You know, I don't want to hear that music. And we're like, bruh, you're in the French Quarter. You know, what do you expect, you know? But, yeah. Yeah, so, and then, you know, you got to deal with police who are having a bad day, you know, and stuff. So, yeah, it gets kind of challenging, but, you know, it's fun. And it was fun creating together. It was fun growing together.
It was fun just making music and, you know, making people stop. I mean, because... You know, street chops are different. You know, you go out there and you set up and most people think, you know, you're on drugs or something's wrong with you. And so they pass by you or decide they're going to pass by you. But then you start playing and they stop. And, you know, you're on the street.
You got to make people stop and listen and then give you money, you know. We're extremely blessed because, you know, we always seem to find that combination that makes people say, oh, my goodness. And they still do it. And it's grand.
I mean, just like with anything else, you know, if you're a parent, you want to be a better parent than your parent, even though you had a great parent, you know. But I just don't want to fall into a rut. People are growing up listening to what I'm doing, what I did. And, you know, I want to be above that. It's flattering.
In some senses, you know, it's insulting because people steal your licks and everything else and they don't acknowledge it, you know. But it's still, you know, you want to stay ahead of the game. You want to be the best. Louis Armstrong is like a big influence on me.
I have listened to, well, I thought up until the other day, actually, I thought I listened to everything that was out there about Louis Armstrong. But there's always something new, you know. But I can hear the same song over that I've heard for hundreds of times and find something new inside of it. It's amazing. It's amazing.
Yeah, that is like asking about a child, you know what I mean? Because there's some that strike me in certain ways and others that strike me in others, you know? I mean, when you say that, you know, La Vie en Rose comes to mind, and probably because my daughter hates it. Oh, really? Why? She says. Yeah.
And then, you know, she fell in love and stuff like that, and she, like, understood it, you know, and stuff like that. La Vie en Rose comes to mind because, you know, he had a way of doing things, you know, sort of like Nat King Cole. You know, you can hear Nat King Cole singing French and Spanish.
He ain't the best French and Spanish, you know, but it's great, you know, because he had that respect, you know, for it. And you can hear Louis do all kinds of different kinds of music, you know, and still know it's Louis. First note, you know, I mean... So I just aspire to just be great. And in order to be great, you've got to keep aspiring to be great, you know.
Oh, La Vie en Rose? I set myself up for that, didn't I? Let me see here.
When you speak, angels sing from above. Every day what seems too tight into love songs. Give your heart and soul to me and life will always believe.
Yeah, I didn't realize it at all. I was just doing what I do. I was just learning songs and playing songs. And somebody asked me when I was... And I was singing, you know, they said, how do you do that with those words? And I'm like, what are you talking about? And, you know, just Louis spoke like my dad, you know. And so without realizing it, you know, instead of saying word, I say void.
You know, stuff like that, you know, because that's what, you know, I grew up with. You know, you change with society. You know, you go to college and you say, well, that boy, and they're like, what the heck are you talking about? You know what I mean? So, but, you know, it always comes back when I do that.
And a lot of the melodies, you know, the way he interpreted the melodies and stuff, I really, really, really liked it, you know, and it appealed to me. So, you know, sometimes, you know, I start off like I learned a melody.
right from him, you know, I'll do exactly what he does, but as, you know, as I play it, as I develop, you know, with the song, it becomes me, you know, I change a few things, you know, because he played a trumpet and I play a clarinet, you know, and he was a much older man, I was a much younger woman, and just other things that come into play that you don't expect, but they do, because it's human nature, you know, so, yeah.
I didn't realize it, but once I realized it, I embraced it and just rolled with it, you know, and I'm still rolling with it.
I grew up in the Treme. And, yeah, a lot of people are familiar with that neighborhood because of the TV series. And I grew up in the house that I was christened in, actually. It used to be a church. It was a church. And I was christened in that very house. And then it became a whole bunch of other things. But, yep, right in the middle. And my parents had a sweet shop. And they named it after me.
Yes. Yeah, and that's a whole other New Orleans traditional story in itself. Like naming stores and things after each other? Oh, no. See, I went to a nursery school called Marietta Bottery. And like any other institution, you know, people need to raise money. And so we have these innovative ways of raising money here in New Orleans.
Showing 61–80 of 125 · page 4 of 7
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