If I had never gone in there, my experiences would have been entirely different, and I probably wouldn't have stayed in the Quarter as long as I did. I certainly didn't intend to.

A lot of people do that: They go to New Orleans for Super Bowl or Mardi Gras or Jazz Fest or whatever, but when it comes time to leave, they don't. They get caught up in the lights, the sounds, the smells, the flavors, and they stay. That's what happened to me when I walked into that blues club-that was my spider web. That's where all my entanglements began.

Allegedly,...