Monday, January 08, 2007

Sad news

Just yesterday I belatedly learned -- after E came across something about it online -- that 25-year-old Dinerral Shavers, snare drummer and original member of the Hot 8, was killed in New Orleans in late December. He was, according to this news story, shot in the back of the head, while in his car. Shavers was also a music teacher, at L.E. Rabouin High School, where:

He had recently begun the school's first-ever marching band. "I've got 80 kids marching -- we're making history at Rabouin," he said proudly in an interview earlier this week. The band was already booked for several Mardi Gras parades.

A subsequent article indicates that a 17-year-old named David "Head" Bonds has been arrested and charged with the murder, which may have somehow been fallout from a feud between Bonds and Shavers' stepson.

At the center of the feud may have been resentment for "Uptowners," such as Shavers' stepson, moving into territory of the "Govs," short for Gov. Nicholls Street, a name adapted by teens from that neighborhood. The feud, police sources said, may have spilled over into John McDonogh School and a club near South Claiborne and Tulane avenues.


This is all very sad. And there's a lot of sad news coming out of New Orleans these days.

I've written about the Hot 8 (the band whose performance of "St. James Infirmary" got me started on this whole project) here and here.