Alabama Shakes, T-Pain & The Eagles (I Guess) Top a Cool Saturday at Jazz Fest

After two rain-shortened days, organizers woke up to the possibility that their headliners could start at the scheduled times.

As of Friday night, forecasts call for a drier day Saturday for Jazz Fest. I’m scheduled to interview The Skatalites at 4:30 p.m. in the Allison Miner Music Heritage Stage, so selfishly I hope that forecast holds up. Weather.com calls for a high of 73, so it should be a beautifully temperate afternoon at the Fair Grounds if the day goes as predicted.

The Eagles are Saturday’s big draw, and their lengthy residency at The Sphere in Las Vegas testified to the fans’ enduring love for the for the band. Yesterday at Nola.com, Keith Spera wrote a defense of the band and Their Greatest Hits from 1976. I suppose that if a reasonable case for a band can be made by 10 songs, he’s right, though I’ll add that I could never connect to songs about how rough life is in California for wealthy, charismatic musicians. I found the last 20 minutes of their 2012 Jazz Fest set to be sad and lifeless, so I can’t join Spera and The Eagles’ fans in their enthusiasm.

I’m expecting more vitality from T-Pain (Congo Square Stage, 5:55 p.m.) and Alabama Shakes (Gentilly Stage, 5:20 p.m.). Alabama Shakes are basically the Brittany Howard show at this point, but with two of the three other founding Shakes and their catalog, not her solo material. They’ll never be as loose and soulful as they were when they packed One Eyed Jacks after the release of their debut Boys & Girls in 2012, but I’m optimistic about pretty much anything Howard’s attached to.

Saturday features a number of acts that I recommend this time every year—Leyla McCalla (Sheraton New Orleans Fais-Do-Do Stage, 1:40 p.m.), Susan Cowsill (Lagniappe Stage, 2:10 p.m.), The Soul Rebels (Congo Square Stage, 2:15 p.m.), Lilli Lewis (Allison Miner Music Heritage Stage, 2:30 p.m.; Lagniappe Stage, 5 p.m.) and Big Freedia (Congo Square Stage, 4:10 p.m.).

I have yet to recommend bluegrass star Sierra Hull (Sheraton New Orleans Fais-Do-Do Stage, 4:20 p.m.), whose fleet, clean mandolin playing is impressive on its own. Her interests reach outside the bluegrass canon, as demonstrated  by the bluegrass concerto she recorded on her recent EP The Movements, and by a recent video of a Tears for Fears cover.

Ska pioneers The Skatalites will finish their stint at Jazz Fest with a set in the Sandals Resorts Jamaica Cultural Exchange Pavilion (2:05 p.m.) and an interview with me. Their story will sound familiar to New Orleanians—studio musicians who backed singers during the day and played their own music when off the clock. There are no original members in band today, but again, New Orleanians understand that like the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, The Skatalites can stand for a culture and an aesthetic.

For more on this year’s Jamaican offerings, check out the recommendations of MACCNO’s Ethan Ellestad. I’m also looking forward to Runkus & Royal Blu with The Dub Squad (Congo Square Stage, 12:50 p.m.) and Yaadcore (Sandals Resorts Jamaica Cultural Exchange Pavilion, 12:40 p.m.), whose recent “Mari Matrimony” imagines marijuana as his companion when he’s lonely.