Continental Drifters
Biography Continental Drifters
Continental Drifters
New Orleans songwriter/musicians living in Los Angeles, Carlo Nuccio and Ray Ganucheau, start a group with talented friends Mark Walton, Danny McGough and Gary Eaton and perform Tuesdays night at Raji’s, a dive bar on Hollywood Boulevard. They begin drawing a regular crowd that includes Susan Cowsill, Vicki Peterson, Peter Holsapple and Robert Maché, who often join in onstage. Holsapple replaces McGough in the lineup, they open an LA show for Bob Dylan, and then make a fateful trip to New Orleans, after which they relocate.
In the Crescent City, exeunt Ganucheau and Eaton; Maché joins, and Continental Drifters move their residency to the Howlin’ Wolf. They tour Germany where Blue Rose Records releases their self-titled album in 1994. Nuccio, too, leaves the fold, and Russ Broussard joins on drums and frottoir. The band records at Dockside Studio in 1997 and creates Vermilion, their award-winning album that showcases the best of the band’s songs. There’s more touring, and guests like Jackson Browne, Adam Duritz and Iain Matthews sit in. Another album is released in 2001, Better Day. After 9/11 when touring Europe looked problematic, Cowsill and Broussard depart, and the remaining members decide to call it a day.
Nineteen Ninety-Three, the band’s unreleased debut album comes out in 2003, and the lineup for that album (Nuccio, Holsapple, Ganucheau, Eaton and Walton) performs a show in New Orleans.
In 2009, Vermilion mainstays Walton, Cowsill, Broussard, Holsapple, Peterson and Maché reunite during the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival week. Walton and Pat Thomas assemble the career-spanning Drifted: In the Beginning & Beyond; all ten musicians who played with the band in its career perform sold-out shows in New Orleans and Santa Monica CA in 2015.
Founder Carlo Nuccio, whose swagger and soul pulled the band together originally, dies in New Orleans on August 24, 2022.
Shows at SXSW and New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival in 2023 reignite interest: in September 2024, Omnivore Recordings releases White Noise & Lightning: The Best of Continental Drifters, a collection of tracks from the four albums. And Cool Dog Sounds publishes White Noise & Lightning: The Story of the Continental Drifters by Sean Kelly along with a two-CD tribute, We Are All Drifters.
