French Quarter Fest: Valerie Sassyfras Goes "Full Sass"

In this encore presentation, the one-woman show talks about how she weathered the pandemic with the help of some fans.

Valerie Sassyfras will play French Quarter Fest on Friday at 11:10 a.m. on the Jack Daniel’s Stage. Last June, I interviewed her to preview “Sass Fest,” her birthday/post-COVID coming out party. The piece remains a good window into the Sassyfras experience.

Valerie Sassyfras’ second appearance on America’s Got Talent in 2019 was a window into the Sassyfras experience. Judge Howie Mandel signaled where he stood when he asked guest judge Dwayne Wade, “Are you ready for a wacky lady?” The sixtysomething singer from New Orleans walked onstage wearing elbow-length black gloves and a gold, sparkling mini-dress with a big open eye embroidered in the middle. Her spiked hair was pulled back by her trademark headband, and when the hip-hop/R&B-flavored remix of her “Girls Night Out” kicked in, she shook her ass to the best of her abilities, which, like her singing itself, was a fluid proposition. 

Precision wasn’t her long suit, so she quickly lost the support of Simon Cowell and Mandell, who watched with a look that mixed scrutiny with dismay. Judges Gabrielle Union and Julianne Hough were there for Sassyfras though, dancing in their chairs and singing along when Sassyfras sang, “I’m horny and I’m lazy.” Union protected her buzzer after Cowell hit Hough’s, bringing Sassyfras within one X of being cut off mid-song. 

Afterwards, Union’s husband and guest panelist Dwayne Wade, said, “I believe Miss Sass is my wife’s spirit animal.” 

Part of the fun of that performance was watching the audience, which seemed to fall between poles established by the judges. Those who wanted a clear, controlled display of talent in conventional terms couldn’t believe what they were seeing. Those who wanted to see a real person be real onstage couldn’t believe what they were seeing either, but that group wanted to more. The crowd is part of the fun at a Valerie Sassyfras show because responding to her one way or another includes them in the show as well. 

Sassyfras returns to live performing Friday night when she celebrates her birthday with Sass Fest at The Broadside. (Note: this event has passed) She has decided to make her first big performance since the pandemic shutdown into a circus complete with special guests The Quickening and performances by Ava the Fire Eater and Hugo the Magician. Mr. Pickle will be there to pose for photos, and Sassyfras’ Sasshay Dancers will teach the Girls Night Out dance to those who want to perform with Sassyfras that night. She’s played birthday gigs before, but nothing so elaborate, and she attributes Sass Fest to COVID.

“I just want to break out and go full sass,” she says, laughing. 

Like most musicians, she tried to stay busy during the pandemic. Sassyfras launched Val Talk, her YouTube talk show, and she shot videos like “New Orleans Song,” where she’s joined in the choreography by Mr. Pickle—a guy in a pickle suit—and guitarist Mario Palmisano. She danced with a wet wipe for her COVID-inspired companion to “Girls Night Out,” “Girls Night In.” But the Sassyfras experience doesn’t entirely translate across the Internet. It’s easy to imagine every video being one click away from crazy virality, but that’s not satisfying for her because she can’t see the audience. 

“You don’t know who’s watching you,” she says. “You don’t know what’s going on on the other side of that screen. When you look in people’s eyes and see how they react, you feed off of that. They feed off of you and it goes back and forth. But when you’re playing in front of a monitor, you don’t know who’s watching or how they’re reacting. You don’t know anything. It was very uncomfortable for me.”

It’s hard to imagine how that could be worse than some gigs. A clip of Sassyfras playing “Girls Night Out” at a kids’ party at a park got the attention of a German pop culture television show as she swung her ass in front of an audience 15 to 20 feet away that appeared to be completely uninterested. The host and reporter that came to New Orleans to meet her treat Sassyfras as a joke until she plays a packed show at The Music Box Village, where the crowd loves her and the whole mad spectacle. They join in on her version of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” singing, “Can you hear me Sassyfras? Can you hear me Sassyfras?”

Sassyfras is thankful for the “Yardy Parties” that fans hired her to play in the last year. “A hundred dollars for three songs, and on up,” she explains. “So I’ve been getting a lot of support, like a whole bunch of them each month.” Some have been block parties while others have been for a dozen or so people, and gigs like that helped pick up the financial slack because in addition to shows, Sassyfras regularly played as background music at restaurants including Morning Call in City Park prior to the change to Cafe du Monde. She lost those gigs too, and they’re only starting to come back. 

“I had a couple of restaurants call me and ask if I could play in the courtyard. Anything that came up, I’m trying to take advantage of the situation.” 

The restaurant gigs are very different as she spends most of her time playing covers, but really they’re just a scaled-down version of her stage show. She doesn’t do the dance club choreography because she’s accompanying herself on accordion or mandolin, but when she feels the need to physically inhabit a song, she goes there, regardless of the time of day or size of crowd. She has done Pete Townshend windmills while playing her mandolin in front of two tables of tourists scarfing down beignets and café au lait, seemingly unconcerned with whether anyone saw her do it. That same spirit is clear onstage at concerts, as is her commitment. 

That commitment and the fundamental question—What’s going on here?—prompted filmmakers Ella Hatamian and Stiven Luka to shoot a documentary about Sassyfras in 2018 and 2019. “During the pandemic, they had time to edit and put the film together,” she says, and the resulting Nobody May Come screened as part of the 2020 New Orleans Film Festival, where it won Best Cinematography in the Louisiana Features competition. The festival was largely a virtual experience in 2020 with “attendees” streaming the films at home, but there was also a live showing of Nobody My Come, which Sassyfras attended. 

“It’s so different when you see it with other people,” she says. “I was laughing my head off. Watching it by myself at home, that’s one thing. You sit there and tear yourself apart and critique yourself. But when you watch it with other people, you’re watching how other people react. They’re laughing, and then I realize I’m laughing too.”