Tipitina's opened in 1977 on an Uptown corner at Napoleon and Tchoupitoulas. Fourteen Tulane alumni and students — the "Fabulous Fourteen" — pooled their money to buy a club where Professor Longhair — 'Fess' — the great New Orleans piano master, could perform. Named for Longhair's song "Tipitina," the club gave him a home for the final three years of his life, and one of the great American music venues was born.
From the beginning Tipitina's was more than a bar — it was a community. Longhair's performances there drew a cross-section of New Orleans that few other venues could match: musicians, students, neighborhood regulars, and the city's music obsessives all packed into a room that felt simultaneously ramshackle and sacred.
