
Recipient
Adam Jones

Songwriting Challenge - 2020
Adam Jones‘s song “A Father’s Fear/Mardi Gras” is set in the 1940’s- early 1950’s New Orleans where a tall, well-dressed Black man named Quincy steps off a train. Quincy is from a well-off family in upstate New York that has roots in New Orleans. He has returned to the city with a sense of duty to serve as an educator for poor children there. The song starts with Quincy’s father, Robert worrying about his son’s safety in Deep South. As the music changes to a New Orleans jazz sound, Quincy gets caught up in a Mardi Gras parade that despite the festiveness, confronts him with racial realities and reflections.