She Still Has Slightly Purple Hair

So Rich and I were wandering aimlessly around the French Quarter late this afternoon when we heard a trio of Brits talking/walking behind us. A girl and two guys. They were butchering the pronunciations of the streets, and the girl was lamenting her bad sense of direction. Rich was endearingly smirking at their accents. I took pity on them, being known for both a bad sense of direction myself as well as a compulsive tendency to try to help any people I can. I turned around and said "Decatur Street is that way" to the girl behind me. She laughed, put her hand on my shoulder warmly and said in her smoky voice, "oh thank you so much! ha - I wasn't even saying it right. Cheers, thanks again, cheers!" I turned back around and as we walked away, it hit me why she looked so familiar: it was Joss Stone! She was -- somewhat surprisingly to me -- really down-to-earth and lovely. And also, like just about every celebrity I've ever met/seen, incredibly normal in real life. I mean, yes, there's the slightly purple dark hair (i think the dirty blonde looks better on her) and multiple? nose rings, and she was wearing pants with huge hearts all over them ... but she had acne "just like US", and her hair was frizzing along with mine in the NO humidity, etc. etc. Hahaha - we should have told her that one of her songs was featured on our wedding save-the-date CD...

I kind of felt badly that I was criticizing her songwriting on this blog just days ago... I do love her voice though.

In a more "local" sighting, we walked by guitarist Ian Neville (Art Neville's son; Aaron Neville's nephew) who was standing outside of Port Of Call - he still looks about five years younger than he is (I think he's like 25 now?) Hopefully he'll pop on stage at some point tonight at the Howlin' Wolf.