His heart beats for New Orleans

There’s something about hometowns that touches people like nothing else can. 

It made Wendell Pierce go back in time six years ago, whenHurricane Katrina struck his beloved New Orleans and took lives and hope away. It made him jump at the chance to return to New Orleans, where he shot the HBO series Treme(airing Monday nights at 11:30).

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CNBC's Jim Cramer takes 'Mad Money' to New Orleans

CNBC's Jim Cramer, host of "Mad Money," says he isn't surprised many investors who took huge losses in the 2008 meltdown are hesitant to return to the financial markets.

Cramer brought his show to Tulane University on Tuesday where he fielded questions from a crowd of hundreds dominated by business students. As always, he repeated his mantra: "There always is a bull market somewhere."

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'American Idol' begins final New Orleans auditions

New judge Steven Tyler and host Ryan Seacrest were among the "American Idol" stars who descended on New Orleans Sunday to conduct final local auditions for season 10 of Fox's prime-time talent show.


No media are allowed inside the auditions, but cameras from local Fox affiliate WVUE-TV showed Tyler and Seacrest arriving at the audition site Sunday afternoon. New judge Jennifer Lopez and returning judge Randy Jackson are expected in New Orleans as well.

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The New Orleans Saints Break Television Records

The Saints are drawing bigger television audiences to the NFL than any team has in history. It seems like every time they play a vitally important game to their season, or the NFL season in general, they break some sort of ratings record.

This was once again true in their huge season opener against the Vikings on September 9. The Saints and Vikings had the highest TV ratings of any NFL season opener in history. Not to mention it had 27.5 million viewers. It broke multiple records such as being the most watched NFL prime time regular season game ever broadcasted on NBC.

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'Treme' Mardi Gras indian costumes make it to Hollywood

The journey "Treme's" Mardi Gras Indians costumes made here to stand tall in a special exhibit of TV costumes mirrored the return trip Albert Lambreaux's Indian suit made into flood-ravaged New Orleans in the premiere episode of the series.


The hard way, all the way. By U-Haul.

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American Idol Hopefuls Belt It Out At The New Orleans Arena

Thousands of American Idol wannabes arrived at the New Orleans Arena Monday. ABC26 News Reporter Vanessa Bolano has the scoop.

Singers of all skill levels flocked downtown with one goal, to become the next American Idol, but among a crowd of more than 6,000, it wasn't easy.

Amanda Truglio of Slidell says, "All the people in my group were really good, but none of us made it."

Matt Bellina of Tampa explains, "You're trying to sing over other people. It's hard to put emotion into a song when so many people are singing around you."

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Documentary captures New Orleans' indomitable spirit

It has been almost five years since the Gulf waters rose and created one of the worst social, environmental and engineering disasters in American history, all played out along the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts.


The fierce winds of Hurricane Katrina roiled the waters, slamming against the outdated canal levees and causing more than 50 breaches.

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2010 Emmy nominations announced: HBO's Treme receives two nods

The 2010 Emmy nominations were announced this morning and HBO's New Orleans based series "Treme" received two nominations.


The series received one nomination for "Outstanding Directing For A Drama Series," the other for "Outstanding Original Music And Lyrics."


The directing nomination recognized the show's pilot "Do You Know What It Means," and the music nomination honored "This City," which was composed by Steve Earle.

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A City of Treme Characters

On June 20, HBO's Treme will wind up its first season, 10-episode run with an episode titled "I'll Fly Away," and from both local and national reviews, it seems creator David Simon's vision of post-Katrina New Orleans life has proved — at last — that it's possible to capture the city accurately on film. We've all cringed at New Orleans-set shows with depictions of "gumbo parties" and characters with accents that alternate between fake-Carolina and fake-Cajun with not a Y'at in earshot. Not that there aren't liberties taken in Treme to move the story forward, but overall the events, settings and characters ring true, and for the most part, have been well-received by local viewers.

  For many characters, development on Treme started in an obvious place: reality. DJ/musician Davis McAlary, writer Creighton Bernette, defense attorney Toni Bernette, Mardi Gras Indian chief Albert Lambreaux and his son Delmond, and chef Janette Desautel have, to a certain extent, real-life counterparts in locals Davis Rogan, Ashley Morris, Mary Howell, Donald Harrison Sr. and Jr., and Susan Spicer. Rogan, Howell, Harrison, Jr., Spicer and trumpeter Kermit Ruffins (who plays himself) also serve as consultants, But, as Treme staff writer Lolis Eric Elie warns, "You have to be careful about the use of the word 'based.' The show really is contemporary historical fiction. These people become starting points for the construction of our characters."

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MTV series 'The Real World: New Orleans' makes over an Uptown mansion as the set of its new season

The Real World: New Orleans" production company scouted three homes, including one in the French Quarter, before settling on the Uptown mansion of former New Orleans Hornets star Baron Davis as its set.

It's a departure from recent seasons, in which the pioneering reality-TV series has housed its cast of young people and the cameras that document their every move inside a movie-set-style apartment built inside an industrial space.

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Music of 'Treme' captures flavor of New Orleans

The music of New Orleans, Louisiana, is more than just Dixieland jazz, Professor Longhair and Pete Fountain.

It's hip-hop and zydeco. It's funk and folk. It's hard rock and new wave, blues and metal, Lil Wayne and the Radiators and Fats Domino and Galactic.

If food is the soul of the city, then music is its heartbeat. (Or maybe it's the other way around.)

"Treme," the HBO show about post-Katrina New Orleans that concludes its first season Sunday, gets it. It has to get it, says music supervisor Blake Leyh. When it comes to the sound of the Crescent City, every New Orleanian is an expert.

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On new TLC series, John Besh takes inept home chefs' dishes from 'Inedible to Incredible'

There is a moment in every episode of the new TLC network cooking show "Inedible to Incredible" in which the host tells an enthusiastic, well-meaning -- but otherwise delusional -- home cook these harsh words:

Worse, the subject of each humiliating intervention has been nominated for the dubious honor by family and/or friends. In video testimonials, they recount literally stomach-churning dishes their loved ones love to make:

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'Treme's' unique star: New Orleans

Shooting has just wrapped for the season on HBO's "Treme," and Khandi Alexander is packing up, trying to fit Zulu parade coconuts and Mardis Gras beads into her boxes along with an overflow of bittersweet memories.

"What we've gone through down here in the past few months — it seems surreal. I don't have the vocabulary to describe it," says the actress, whose inner fire and sharp-etched strength have helped make her character, New Orleans bar owner LaDonna Batiste-Williams, one of the standouts in the new show from David Simon, creator of HBO's "The Wire."

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'The Real World: New Orleans Trailer

It's party on, 'Jersey Shore'-style, on the upcoming season of MTV's 'The Real World.'

Look for hot tubs, hook-ups and an assault charge this summer on the new New Orleans 'Real World,' according to the new trailer. What isn't evident are references to the city's post-Hurricane Katrina recovery or the recent Gulf of Mexico oil spill, which is presently threatening the Crescent City.

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New Orleans Chef Appears On 'Today' Show

New Orleans executive chef Matt Murphy appeared on the "Today" show on Friday, exactly one year after he fell at home, became critically ill and slipped into a coma for almost two months.

Murphy's wife, Alicia, was pregnant with their fifth child at the time. They also have quadruplet daughters.

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Treme's Khandi Alexander: New Orleans Is in Her Character's Blood and Bones

When Treme co-creator David Simonapproached Khandi Alexander for his new HBO drama, she didn't even have to read the script.

"I said, 'It doesn't even matter what it is, I'm in," Alexander tells TVGuide.com. "It was just the opportunity to work with David again. To be in the company of someone you feel so comfortable with creatively and personally, there was no second guessing. It was a yes before I read the material."

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And just like that 'Treme' is picked up for second season on HBO

HBO has renewed its new critically acclaimed new drama series “Treme” for a second season.

The move is a significant leap of faith for the network — the show just premiered Sunday night to 1.4 million viewers in its combined airings. By comparison, the final season of modestly rated “The Wire” averaged 890,000 for premiere episodes.

But HBO president Michael Lombardo tells THR that the network loves “Treme” so much that a pickup was inevitable.

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New Orleans Chef John Besh Rolls Out Two New TV Shows

Celebrated New Orleans chef John Besh has not one, but two upcoming TV shows. The first, Inedible to Incredible, will be on TLC starting in mid June. Besh smartly describes it as the What Not to Wear of the food world.

"It's people who mean well about food but eat terribly and no one has the heart to tell them," explains Besh to Slashfood. "I go in and help them. One reason I really wanted to do the show is because I can attract a huge audience and teach people about food. Unfortunately today there are a lot of people who rely too much on overly processed food. Hopefully I can introduce them to farmers' markets, alternatives in the supermarkets and offer them some cooking tips.

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The soundtrack of New Orleans infuses HBO's 'Treme'

With Treme, TV's poet laureate of urban America sets his words to music.

Music — unstructured, unfiltered, spontaneous and sometimes discordant — is, after all, what first made the world take note of New Orleans and is what still plays behind our fondest memories of a city that is both quintessentially American and yet somehow totally a place unto itself. And music is what drives this endlessly rich series from The Wire's David Simon, who has teamed with Wire writer Eric Overmyer to re-create New Orleans three months after it was nearly washed away by Hurricane Katrina.

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David Simon shoots straight for the heart of New Orleans

David Simon wants the admirers of literate urban storytelling whom he courted withHBO's Baltimore-based The Wire series to follow him halfway across the country and deeper into his heart for his new project.

Treme (Treh-MAY), a series set and filmed in post-Katrina New Orleans that explores its rich, exotic traditions and wounded yet resilient citizens, kicks off a 10-episode season Sunday (10 p.m. ET/PT) on HBO

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