Maple Leaf Bar

The Maple Leaf Bar is a music performance venue in New Orleans, Louisiana.

The Maple Leaf is on Oak Street in the Carrollton neighborhood of Uptown New Orleans. It is one of the oldest and most beloved of New Orleans' music clubs, with live bands often performing seven nights a week. Styles represented on stage include blues, funk, R&B, rock, zydeco, jazz, jam bands, and any combination thereof. Over the years the bar has hosted many of the city's greatest musicians, as well as national touring acts. Frequent performers at the Maple Leaf have included local legends James Booker, the Rebirth Brass Band, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown, Walter "Wolfman" Washington, and Henry Butler. Bruce Springsteen once dropped in unannounced to jam with The Iguanas after one of his New Orleans concerts; Jon Cleary's band was once joined by his frequent employer, Bonnie Raitt. The Leaf has also been an important incubator for the city's many up-and-coming bands formed from the ranks of local musicians and music students at Tulane University, Loyola University and the University of New Orleans.

Hurricane Katrina
The Maple Leaf hosted the Krewe of OAK "Midsummer Mardi Gras" parade and party as schedualed on the night of Saturday, the 27th of August, 2005, although Hurricane Katrina was barrelling down on the city. While attendance was smaller than usual, a crowd insisted on partying New Orleans style one last time. Some came from having spent the day boarding up their homes and packing up their cars, and evacuated from the city after the party.

The Maple Leaf was closed for several weeks in the aftermath of the storm (see: Effect of Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans). Owner Hank Staples stayed in New Orleans to guard the bar and his other properties, while vowing in interviews with national media outlets to host the first concert in New Orleans after the storm. And on September 30, 2005, Walter "Wolfman" Washington played the Maple Leaf's first post-Katrina show in New Orleans. (Some other local musicians who were playing in the aftermath of the storm dispute the claim that it was the city's first post-Katrina public performance, but it was the first to generate such sizable crowds and media attention.) The band's equipment was powered by a diesel generator because electricity had not yet been restored to most of the city. The gig was eventually shut down by police and National Guard as the city was still under a curfew.