Jumpin' Johnny Sansone Speaks Out On BP Oil Spill

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New Orleans' Johnny Sansone will appear in Somers Point on consecutive Friday nights, in part to better educate people on the problems caused by the BP oil catastrophe.

By Ray Schweibert

Add Comment | Comments: 0 | Posted Jul. 2, 2010

Sansone and The Edge of U2.

That cajun/creole/zydeco sound that originated in southern Louisiana has a cheerful quality to it that lift spirits and makes people want to get up and dance.

Such will still be the case when Jumpin’ Johnny Sansone — a New Orleans fixture and one of the Voice of the Wetlands All Stars — appears on back-to-back Friday nights (July 2 and 9) as part of the Somers Point Beach Concert Series and after party at Sandi Pointe on July 2. However, Sansone’s southern New Jersey visits also have a somewhat somber message to convey. Following each show, starting around 9:30pm at the Tony Mart’s After the Beach Dance Party at Sandi Pointe, Sansone will call attention to the magnitude of the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and how it continues to wreak havoc ecologically and wreck lives economically. Sansone, who will be performing with the Hawkins Road Allstar Band, will answer questions about the severity of the problem and let people know what they can do to help.

“I’m seeing things getting worse every day,” Sansone tells Atlantic City Weekly. “The oil has reached many of the Gulf Coast shores, and more appears daily. I was at the beach in Fort Morgan, Alabama, and watched as the clear water started to turn black. The people working on the clean-up would work all day to get it half done, only to return the next day to see twice the tar. They had a catch-and-release for fishing last week, but now state and federal waters are all closed to fishing. They were saying the beach was open but no one wants to go in the water.

“My friends who are fisherman in Grand Isle (Louisiana, an island about 50 miles below New Orleans) told me they saw a giant solid blob like a floating island in the water, with no one anywhere near it to try and clean it up.

“If you’d like to help, you can support the clean-up benefits by buying benefit CDs that will soon be released, or you can also donate money directly to the people that are the worse off by going to Bayougrase.com. They are providing mental health help and giving out food cards from the local stores. You can also visit voiceofthewetlands.org, wwoz.org or gulfaid.org.”

If you are able to volunteer any of your time call 866-448-5816 or 281-366-5511 to learn how.

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