Henry Butler in exile, but still a N.O. musician

• By JOHN WIRT
• Music critic
• Published: Apr 25, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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New Orleans piano maestro Henry Butler is among the city’s artists in exile.

“I was on the road for about three months after Katrina and then I realized I didn’t have anywhere to go,” he said during a telephone interview. 

“Some people from Boulder, Colo., reached out to me. They got a place for me to stay while I looked for an apartment. I found an apartment and they helped me move in.”

Butler, a former resident of New Orleans’ Gentilly neighborhood, lived in Boulder for a year before moving to the Mile High City. 

“I’m higher and drier,” he said from Denver. “It’s not always good, but this is what I could do at the time.”

Butler is among those New Orleanians who didn’t take Katrina seriously till late in the game.

“Most of the time, storms like that, they turn at the last minute and find a different place to strike,” he said. “So we were still having fun down there, just doing things like we normally do.”

But the day before the storm came ashore, the blind singer-pianist decided to take his leave.

“It’s a good thing I did,” he said. “When I went back to visit my house, all the furniture was turned upside down. The water really did a serious job on the bottom floor of my house.”

Like fellow New Orleans musicians in Gentilly — including Allen Toussaint, Dr. Michael White and the late Wilson “Willie Tee” Turbinton — the water ruined the tools of Butler’s trade, not to mention most everything else he had.  

“My piano, my recording studio,” he said. “I lost some scores, some master tapes, things that I’d been working on. Gosh, it was a real disaster.”

Nearly three years later, he said, “I’m still in recovery, but I’m doing OK.”

For now, at least, Butler has mixed feelings about New Orleans.