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MOBILE

Pie” by Big Bill Lister. By the late 1950s, according to David Magee’s 2006 book, MoonPie: Biography of an Out-of-This-World Snack , the MoonPie had become so popular that the Chattanooga Bakery produced nothing else. Around this time, MoonPies made their debut as throws in Mobile Mardi Gras parades. But the identity of the thrower of the very first MoonPie is up for debate, and several local legends have sprung up around it. One claims that children on the Queen’s float in the Comic Cowboys parade were the first to throw MoonPies in a Mobile Mardi Gras parade in 1956. Another gives the honor to Jerry Curran, who rode in his first parade in 1958 on an Infant Mystics float that carried several employees of Smith’s Bakery, who tossed wrapped bakery products like coconut balls and cupcakes to the crowds. Before the next year’s parade, Curran visited Malbis Bakery, where his father worked, to ask if they had anything good to throw for Mardi Gras.Malbis made their own version of MoonPies, which Curran threw the following year, in 1959. Referred to by his nephew, Glen, as “the granddaddy of MoonPies,” Robert “Bob” Harrison is also credited with being the first to throw the MoonPie. In 1967, Harrison was talked into joining the Stripers, but had little money to spend on throws. At the time, he worked as a distributor for the Murray Biscuit Company and could obtain MoonPies at a low cost. He brought boxes of MoonPies to the float — he was a little embarrassed to do so, but the crowd loved them— and the next year, all of the Stripers threw MoonPies. Yet another legend credits the Maids of Mirth with throwing the first MoonPies in the late 1960s. As the story goes, Louise “Sister” McClure and Elizabeth “Dibber” Lutz went to Tom’s Candy Sales in search of something different (and less costly) to replace the full-size candy bars they had thrown in the past. McClure relates that MoonPies “were so cheap — two or three boxes for a dollar, a lot less than some throws. We didn’t even try to get a deal from the store — we just bought a dozen or so boxes and started throwing them. They were easy to throw. You could take hold of the cellophane and flip them just like a Frisbee.” The crowd loved the MoonPies, especially the children who could easily

Moon Pie, Moon Pie, Throw Me Some Beads ...

of course, the tune is actually about going to a parade, with lines that capture the sights (“majorettes pop-locking down to the ground”) and even the smells (“horses, corn dogs, chicken on a stick”) of a day on the route. As of late 2017, the video has had close to two million views on YouTube. Somehow, Carnival (whether in Mobile, New Orleans, Cajun country or wherever revelry can be found on Fat Tuesday) manages to put its stamp on every genre of music to emerge from the Gulf Coast. Before 2 Major Twinz’s “Mardi Gras Song,” ’80s releases like Parlez’s “Make It, Shake It, Do It Good (Mardi Gras Man)” and the Jones and Taylor Experience’s “Mardi Gras Rap” added hip-hop to the mix, which already included rhythm & blues (Al “Carnival Time” Johnson’s signature tune or the Hawketts’ “Mardi Gras Mambo”); Mardi Gras Indian chants run through a filter of rock and funk (“Iko Iko,” “Handa Wanda”); swamp pop; and traditional Cajun songs like “La Danse de Mardi Gras,” whose roots may be nearly as old as American Mardi Gras itself. Wherever and whenever that party technically began, its spirit is infectious enough to find its way into the soundtrack of our whole season of revelry: parties, parades and debutante balls, from the street to high society. But just so we’re clear, 2 Major Twinz have no ambivalence about the origin of stateside Mardi Gras. “We started this here,” the Mobilians sing, “so all others bow down.”

by Alison Fensterstock Carnival season has long been associated with music, from the high school marching bands that delight parade-goers each year to the litany of traditional songs that celebrate the occasion. And as of last Carnival season, the oldest Mardi Gras party in the U.S. is the topic of something very 21st-century indeed: a viral hip-hop anthem. “Mardi Gras Song” by Wesley and Whitney Grant — twin brothers who together are the Mobile-based rap duo 2 Major Twinz — is a familiar and beloved part of Mobile’s Carnival soundtrack. Its rattling hi-hat, booming brass and celebratory lyrics (“Moon pie, moon pie, throw me some beads/It’s Mardi Gras time in the MOB!”) make it a dependable spin for live DJs who want to hype up crowds before parades. Mobile’s main hip-hop and R&B station, 93BLX-FM, drops it into heavy rotation during the party season. The local hit went viral in 2016, 11 years after its original release, when a New Orleans filmmaker attached it to a two- minute short she’d cut together from a glorious day at the parades in Uptown New Orleans on St. Charles Avenue. “Mardi Gras Song,” with its second-line horns and propulsive parade rhythm,

was the perfect soundtrack to the colorful, dynamic shots of drum majors showing off footwork,

trumpets and trombones gleaming in the sun, dance teams strutting, and kids loaded up with beads. And

illustration by Mark Andresen

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