Stuck in a minor key

New Orleans

THIS is a town so inextricably linked to good times and revelry that a musician could practically make a name with one celebratory anthem.

That's the case with Al "Carnival Time" Johnson. Since 1960, "Carnival Time," the song and the singer, have been mainstays of New Orleans' Mardi Gras celebrations. Even at other times of the year, his upbeat party tune, a musical tour of the Big Easy on Fat Tuesday, is played on the radio and performed at event after event by Johnson himself.

Now he's singing a different tune. Johnson has released a new single, "Lower Ninth Ward Blues," which gives a very different tour of the city, a solo, gospel-ish piano accompanying his account of the devastation that came when the levees broke after Hurricane Katrina struck on Aug. 29, 2005. Many neighborhoods were left largely lifeless, including that of Johnson -- who describes the ruins of his house in one particularly moving verse.

Twenty-three forty-nine Tennessee Street

We shared good and bad memories

I don't know which way to go

Because my home is not there anymore.

The song reflects the other half of the essential duality that is New Orleans, a city as adept with funerals as it is with partying. "It keeps me going," he says of the new song. "It brings me through a whole lot. Katrina was very devastating to us. It's different, and it's my story and exactly how I feel."

Johnson is hardly alone. The Louisiana Music Factory, a French Quarter store specializing in New Orleans music, now stocks CD after CD on which local artists have dealt with the post-flood experiences in song -- some expressing anger, others celebrating the prospect of renewal, some conveying nostalgic shout-outs to people who've passed away or simply moved away, some looking ahead, some beginning in sorrow and ending in life-affirming joy, just like a New Orleans funeral second-line parade.

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, led to some profound musical statements, but predictions that the horrific events would somehow introduce new meaning across the pop landscape evaporated within months.

Two years after Katrina, the landscape of New Orleans music, like the landscape of the city itself, is radically different. Where the scene was dominated by party tunes and decades-old standards, where some of the most popular local acts could count on weekly gigs without having to stretch too much, now there's something deeper.