Lake Charles, Louisiana

Everything Lake Charles is known for

17 songs mention this city 9 artists from here

Lake Charles, Louisiana, a major industrial, cultural, and educational center in the southwest region of Louisiana, boasts a rich musical heritage. The city is known for its vibrant live music scene, which includes Cajun and Zydeco music. Nine artists call Lake Charles home, including Americana artist Lucinda Williams and pop artist Phil Phillips. The city is also mentioned in 17 songs, such as "Lake Charles" by Lucinda Williams and "Up on Cripple Creek" by The Band.

Music in Lake Charles

Songs About Lake Charles

Up on Cripple Creek - Concert Version
The Band
100%
"To Lake Charles, Louisiana, a little Bessie girl that I once knew"
Take Me Lake Charles
Shinyribs
81%
"Take me to Lake Charles"
lake charles
robyn ludwick
78%
Lake Charles
Lucinda Williams
78%
"He had a reason to get back to Lake Charles"
Give a Damn
Logan Ryan Band
68%
"But old Lake Charles been calling my name"
Up On Cripple Creek (Concert Version)
The Band
53%
"To Lake Charles, Louisiana, a little Bessie girl that I once knew"
Up on cripple creek - 2000 - remaster
The Band
53%
"To Lake Charles Louisiana"
Houston Blues
Jonathan Terrell
51%
"Took me straight into Lake Charles, Louisian'"
Hurricane
Parker McCollum
51%
"Bet she'll have that Lake Charles, Louisiana, welcome sign"
Up On Cripple Creek - Remastered 2000
The Band
45%
"To Lake Charles, Louisiana"
high cotton
blue water highway
24%
new orleans
red dirt rangers
20%
rollin' steam
zack mcginn
20%
the devil piles his trade
turnpike troubadours
10%
Drink Till I See Double
Ray Wylie Hubbard
8%
"I was thinking Gary Busey"
Is There a Heaven 4 a Gangsta?
Master P
3%
"Lake Charles"
Bout It, Bout It II
Master P
3%
"From Lafayette to Lake Charles to Chicago to Florida"

Artists From Lake Charles

L
Lucinda Williams
americana Pop: 51
C
Cookie & the Cupcakes
r-n-b Pop: 37
P
Phil Phillips
pop Pop: 36
D
Dylan Earl
americana Pop: 22
G
Gill Landry
americana Pop: 22
J
Jon Smith
blues Pop: 12
Q
Queen Ida
latin Pop: 7
E
Eddie Shuler
blues Pop: 5
J
Jimmie Clanton
r-n-b Pop: 1

Rivers & Roads in Song near Lake Charles

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Lake Charles.

US Route 90 6 songs Interstate 10 23 songs Sabine River 10 songs

History of Lake Charles

The Pirate's Festival Capital RoadyGoat

Lake Charles bills itself as the Festival Capital of Louisiana, and its signature blowout is built on a pirate legend. Local lore holds that buccaneer Jean Lafitte stashed loot along Contraband Bayou here while running from enemy ships toward Galveston (the buried-treasure part is folklore, not proven). The town leaned all the way in: the Contraband Days festival began in 1958 and grew into a multi-day spring carnival drawing crowds in the hundreds of thousands, kicking off each year when costumed 'pirates' storm the lakefront seawall and make the mayor walk the plank. Beyond the cannon smoke, this is the gateway to Cajun and Creole southwest Louisiana — boudin, gumbo, and zydeco within easy reach. Sitting on its namesake lake near the Texas line, Lake Charles is a working port town that knows how to throw a party.

The Rotten-Egg Smell Isn't Sulfur RoadyGoat

Time to bust the myth this town gets teased about. Pure elemental sulfur is completely odorless. That famous rotten-egg stink everybody blames on sulfur is actually hydrogen sulfide -- a compound of sulfur and hydrogen, not the element itself. And hydrogen sulfide hides a genuinely dangerous trick. At very low concentrations, your nose catches it easily; it's one of the smelliest gases there is. But at high, life-threatening concentrations, the gas rapidly deadens your sense of smell, so it suddenly seems to vanish. The warning smell switches off exactly when the danger is greatest -- which is why workers around it never trust their noses and rely on gas detectors instead. So the town named Sulphur is, fittingly, built on the odorless element, while the smell people joke about comes from a compound that plays a cruel trick on anyone who relies on it.

10.3 mi away

Sulfuric Acid, King of Chemicals RoadyGoat

That sulfur in the ground feeds one of the most-produced industrial chemicals on Earth: sulfuric acid. The world makes something like two hundred sixty million tonnes of it a year. It's so central to industry that, as recently as 2002, an economist could gauge a country's industrial strength by how much sulfuric acid it produced -- when you build things, you use this acid somewhere along the line. But the biggest single use isn't steel or batteries. About sixty percent of all sulfuric acid goes into making fertilizer, where it's used to turn raw phosphate rock into a form crops can actually absorb. So this acid, quietly and almost invisibly, helps feed the entire world's food supply -- a chemical most people have never thought about, working behind nearly everything that grows.

10.4 mi away

Everything Near Lake Charles

8 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

Explore Lake Charles on the Map
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