I grew up in Berkeley, California and because of that I am easily triggered by certain hippie-tainted things. That means you can miss me with, among other things, carob chips, nutritional yeast, requests for “gas, grass or ass”, and tambourines.
That last one is a particularly odious item for me as it represents an entire subculture of folks, young and old, who congregate to swap Grateful Dead stories and noodle dance the night away all the while shaking that tambourine like there’s no tomorrow. There has been a continuous party going on there that started sometime in 1967 and refuses to stop. Thankfully, one grandmother in Louisiana named Rosalie “Lady Tambourine” Washington has delivered us tambourine-averse types from the shackles of our jingling perceptions by slapping that ‘rine with the hand of God.
Rosalie was filmed earlier this month working her magic at a Southern University Jaguars football game in Baton Rouge, Louisana. Here she is going to town on a Sean Paul jam and making me sweat with her dank moves (that elbow break beat, y’ll!) and hot, hot groove!
You won’t be surprised to hear that this isn’t just a one-off for Rosalie. Apparently she’s a New Orleans legend who began playing tambourine at the age of 5 after having a vision of watching her grandmother in church singing and playing the tambourine.
“I saw fire coming from the tambourine, and I thought, ‘Lord, I wish I could play like that.'”
God was listening. Thank you, Rosalie!
Pic: YouTube