Attention musicians: For those thinking they need to rush their product out with sub-par material and inferior packaging for that nifty festival gig, take note of Gina Forsyth. The New Orleans singer-songwriter/roots musician never releases anything before it’s damn good and ready—and then some—thanks to Katrina and other life interruptions. Her solo sophomore effort is loaded with thought-provoking content and incisive humor, the song’s real message revealed in layers. Along the way, facets of Forsyth’s personality are unveiled, such as her exemplary Cajun musicianship on “Belle,” a tricky 5/4 ballad from the Lomax Archive that’s richly rendered here on voice and acoustic guitar.

The album’s theme revolves around America, from its supposedly idealistic beginnings to today’s frightening reality where human-to-human communication has become a lost art (“4th of July”). It’s a value paramount to Forsyth, as expressed in “Christmas in China,” where mankind and memories of others, not inconsequential gifts, are the only true gifts. On “What I Did On Mardi Gras Day, “she strums a fiddle as if it were a Middle Eastern instrument and comments about the local music industry: “So now you play until you hit the floor / and when you hit the floor, they don’t miss a beat. / They sweep you to the end of Bourbon Street.” She’s hilarious commenting on her native, beloved South (“Sweet & Sunny South”) when she sings, “We love our musicians and our fascist politicians,” then questions the South’s provincial view on gay rights. It’s hard to say if there will ever be a promised land that fulfills every expectation, but when it comes to Forsyth’s songwriting, there are no promises, just truths.

Despite the personnel changes over its eight-year existence, the Lafayette Rhythm Devils still manage to find new grooves to mount its formidable dancehall attack. As evidenced on its first disc in five years, credit newest member Blake Miller for part of the spark. Besides his loose, innovative attitude in the studio, the talented accordionist never lacked for that creative lick that only helped fuel the Devils’ fire. Miller aside, it’s still a veteran band that cruises like a well-oiled machine. Fiddler Chris Segura burns many an impressive solo with deep, gorgeous tones while Yvette Landry anchors the low frequencies with her fat, propulsive bass lines. The Devils’ sonic demeanor still revolves around guitarist Randy Vidrine, one of the most distinct vocalists in Cajun music. His pipes are not the weepy, plaintive variety of generations ago, nor are they the oft-heard pleasant-sounding, modern type. Instead, there’s a certain swagger about Vidrine’s high crooning, an uncanny ability to stretch notes to their fullest and crescendo them with power.

The song selection is also very much Vidrine with tenderly rendered selections from Shirley Bergeron and Adam Hebert as well as ripping songs from past bands Charivari and Mouton Noir. New originals would have been nice, but with all the covers that proliferate in Cajun music, it only makes sense to reprise your own material, especially when it holds up well against the test of time. Yet, nothing is more touching than the story behind “John Stoute’s Medley,” an inspired pair of Dennis McGee fiddle tunes that were favorites of Stoute, an avid fan stricken with cancer. Before any of this was officially a project, the band recorded the medley and presented it to Stoute days before he passed, hence giving credence to the notion that sometimes Devils can be angels.

What most people don’t realize about Cajun music is that it was a family tradition long before it was played professionally. Such is the case here with John and Jane Vidrine (of Magnolia Sisters fame), whose charming collection of traditional Cajun fare and three originals resemble a sonic family photo album. The tradition that the Vidrines started as a couple has been carried forth by offspring Emilie and Joseph (now young adults) who sing and play bass respectively on the CD. But as with any family album, good friends are usually spotted among its pages, and that applies here with fiddlers David Greely and Ed Poullard and drummer Steve Riley rounding out a solid, in-the-pocket dance band for most of these proceedings.

Archival tracks Jane taped at various rehearsals and jams throughout the years are the album’s coup de gras. Three tracks feature fiddlers Eric and Clay Chapman, grandsons of fiddler Sady Courville and great nephews of Courville’s lifetime duet partner Dennis McGee. The Chapmans were weaned on the McGee-Courville style, which is exemplified by the rendition of “Gilbeau Pelican-Berzas Reel.”

The Vidrine-Chapman Family Band played for nearly a decade that included appearances at four Festivals Acadiens and various out-of-state festivals. For years, Cajun music zealots waited with cautious optimism for some type of Chapman recording. Sadly, those hopes disappeared when Clay unexpectedly passed away in 2008. To date, these are the only publicly available tracks from a family album that seamlessly spans decades while celebrating the essential joie de vivre spirit.

Though there aren’t as many various artist Cajun-zydeco compilations being released these days, The Rough Guide to Cajun & Zydeco is one of the few that actually makes sense. Instead of featuring randomly selected tracks or historically based selections showing where the genre has been, music journalist/OffBeat contributor Herman Fuselier selected 15 tracks showing where Southwest Louisiana’s indigenous French music is now. Most selections, such as Horace Trahan’s blistering “Same Knife Cut the Sheep Cut the Goat” and Kevin Naquin’s crazy swing “T’es Jamais Satisfait (“You’re Never Satisfied”)” have garnered heavy airplay around Acadiana and are not just deep album cuts taking up space.

Several reveal ingenuity, such as Cedric Watson’s “Afro Zydeco” where masterful kora player Morikeba Kouyate plays in perfect sync with Watson’s accordion, and Jeffery Broussard’s “Return of the Creole” that starts out as an ancient waltz, then erupts into a galloping zydeco before ending quietly as a waltz. Feufollet’s “Femme L’a Dit” is another stunning example—an a cappella ballad culled from the ULL Archive transformed into a gypsy jazz arrangement with Dixieland-style horns and a boisterous finale.

If there isn’t enough quality music featured here, Chubby Carrier’s 2006 Bayou Road is included in its entirety as a bonus disc, making this a collection whose lagniappe even has lagniappe.

Buy The Rough Guide to Cajun & Zydeco on iTunes

Listen to The Rough Guide to Cajun & Zydeco on Spotify

Columbia Records signed Vin Bruce in 1952, making the 19-year-old the first Cajun to ever sign a contract with a major label. It was his beautiful French originals that attracted the record company, who recognized the potential of a Cajun country artist after Harry Choates garnered national acclaim with “Jole Blon” in 1946. Between 1952 and 1954, Bruce recorded 20 sides, 18 of which were released, performed on the Grand Ole Opry and even sang at Hank Williams’ second wedding in New Orleans. Two years later, the onslaught of rock ‘n’ roll resulted in Bruce’s contract being terminated, thus beginning an era where he would eventually record for various Louisiana labels. Still, it’s always been baffling why Bruce’s early recordings were never re-released, but credit Gulf Coast music historians Andrew Brown and former OffBeat contributor Michael Hurtt for making this happen.

Backed by a stellar Nashville band featuring multi-instrumentalist Grady Martin, guitarist Chet Atkins and pianist Owen Bradley, Bruce’s Columbia catalogue is presented in its entirety, including such signature songs as “Dans La Louisianne” and the tuneful “Claire de la Lune.” Although most of the arrangements are relaxed and carefree, “I Tried” swings with killer solos by Atkins and Williams’ steel ace Don Helms. As a songwriter, Bruce was more prolific in French than in English with four French and two English tunes. Four more French originals were inexplicably never credited to Bruce.

Compared to his later years, when his voice deepened and became smoother, in the early 50s, Bruce crooned in a higher, supple voice with a gentle delivery. It’s still a beautiful thing to behold and deservedly places him in a league of country music’s elite, even if it was only for a brief two years.

Buy Vin Bruce’s Dans La Louisianne on Amazon

When Corey Ledet sings about going back home on the freewheeling opening track, one has to wonder if this first generation/Clifton Chenier style of zydeco is indeed his home. Out of today’s current crop of players, no one does what Ledet does quite as well or as naturally. With dazzling trills and fingers flying dizzyingly across the keys, he whoops and hollers so exuberantly that it’s obvious he celebrates life through his playing.

On “My Soul,” Ledet sets up a full-bore boogie, only to get a little push from legendary blues guitarist Lil’ Buck Sinegal, who creates a resonating ringing by strumming across the strings. The vocally bouncy “Pick a Bale of Cotton” has to be the most unusual, not to mention the funkiest of the lot—one culled from the canon of Lead Belly, who ties in here nicely since the multi-instrumentalist also played an accordion.

These action-packed tracks set Ledet apart from his contemporaries, but unlike them, he hardly projects himself as the sensitive, serious artist. But if you don’t take his intoxicating throw down dance music seriously, you’ve just missed the cruise of your life.

Buy Corey Ledet’s Do You Want More? on iTunes

Along with Iry LeJeune and Nathan Abshire, Lawrence Walker played an integral part in Cajun music’s accordion revival in the early ’50s. He was such a smooth, precise player that he was crowned “King of the Accordion Players” with his only real competition coming from Aldus Roger in the latter part of the decade. This 22-track collection underscores Walker’s mammoth contributions; many of his French-sung originals (“Reno Waltz,” “Evangeline Waltz,” “’Tits Yeux Noirs”) featured here are regularly played by today’s practitioners.

The collection spans a 17-year period (1951-1968), culling tracks from Floyd Soileau’s infant VeePee label (four), George Khoury’s Khoury/Lyric labels (12) and Carol Rachou’s La Louisianne Records (six). One thing that’s evident throughout is Walker’s preference for a balanced arrangement, meaning that melody rides and solos are shared equitably between lead instruments. Overall, the sound quality is remarkable for recordings of this vintage considering the unsophisticated studio environment (a radio station was used for four tunes) and that some Khoury tracks were resurrected from 78 rpm recordings rather than master tapes.

Besides being a traditionalist in the classic Cajun sense, Walker was also a progressive, experimental spirit. Some of it was out of necessity when the onslaught of rock ’n’ roll caused Cajun dance crowds to dwindle. Walker countered with English-sung Cajun rock/rockabilly tunes (“Keep Your Hands Off of It,” “Lena Mae”) that weren’t immediately embraced but fare better today in a hip, retro sense. Rock influences in Cajun music wouldn’t become wildly popular until Coteau and Wayne Toups emerged in the late ‘70s and ‘80s, but Lawrence Walker got there first.

Buy Lawrence Walker’s Essential Collection on iTunes

Barry Ancelet (right) with Cajun artist Lanese Vincent (left). Photo by Philip Gould.

One of the sonic jewels to be had at this year’s Festivals Acadiens et Creoles was Best of Festivals Acadiens 2002, released by Valcour Records. Its 14 tracks include such titans as Belton Richard, Walter Mouton and the Scott Playboys, Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys, and Wayne Toups, and another 10 tracks are available for download from Valcour’s website. All the material was culled from the Archives of Cajun and Creole Folklore at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (ULL) with the final selections handpicked by the archive’s Chris Segura, festival organizer Pat Mould, and Barry Ancelet, Debaillon and Granger Endowed Professor of Francophone Studies at ULL.

This wasn’t the first time that the archive has been involved in the release of a CD, having released field recordings of fiddler Varise Conner and Women’s Home Music in 2004 and 2007, respectively. This release represents the birth of a new era with a newly formed partnership between the archive, Valcour Records and Festivals Acadiens’ organizing committee, Rubber Boots. “The partnership is mutually beneficial,” says Jennifer Ritter Guidry, Assistant Director of the Center for Cultural and Eco-Tourism, the administrative arm of the archive.

The archive holds an estimated 8,000 hours of listening and viewing material on 27 terabytes of disk storage. With this new venture, the possibilities seem endless. Segura estimates that they’ll put out two to three projects a year on Valcour’s Rubber Bootleg Series. “I think what we are going to focus on now is either individual sets or retrospectives of an artist’s career at the festival,” Segura says. “We’ll be able to dig back into the ‘80s and pick stuff and then go into the ‘90s, if they were active that long, and get a career-standing view of what they did at that festival.”

Credit for this new collaboration starts with Ancelet. In January 1977, he returned to ULL (then USL) from the University of Indiana as a newly hired folklorist. Along with him came his own collection, which included the ‘75 Conner sessions.

Ancelet knew that other collections existed through the fieldwork of such folklorists as Alan Lomax, Ralph Rinzler, Dr. Harry Oster and Elizabeth Brandon. In 1977, he accompanied BeauSoleil to Jimmy Carter’s presidential inauguration in Washington, D.C., where he visited the Library of Congress and acquired copies of Rinzler’s collection and brought it back to Louisiana.

“We started being able to compile the fieldwork that had been done in the past in one spot, so we could listen to it together, and in sequence, and get a perspective on the history of Cajun and Creole music,” says Ancelet.

In 1979, he acquired copies of the Lomax recordings, which turned out to be an eye-opening experience. “Michael Doucet [of BeauSoleil] and I were sitting in the Archives together listening to them. And after we heard the first reel, we looked at each other and said, ‘Oh my God, we are going to have to rethink everything we thought we knew about the history of this music.’

“All that we heard historically was the commercial recordings going back to 1928, but the commercial record companies were recording stuff that they felt was popular at the time. They weren’t recording stuff that was old. Lomax was recording stuff that was old on purpose to reach farther back. The record companies were interested in selling records. [Lomax] was interested in capturing a tradition that was about to fade.”

Over time, the archive has grown with the acquisition of collections from Oster, Brandon and others. Ancelet made a point of providing copies to the families of the person who was recorded during a field session. Ancelet refers to this as “bringing [the recordings] back to their home.” “In some cases, those families were hearing voices that they had not heard in decades,” he says.

“One of the things that I was always concerned about was not to have the Archives be a mausoleum,” says Ancelet, and his vision has come true over time. BeauSoleil; Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys; Wayne Toups; Feufollet and Bonsoir, Catin have used material from the archive, rearranged it and made it modern again. ”When Feufollet did ‘Tout En Beau Soir En Me Promenant,’ Anna Laura [Edmiston] sang this absolutely gorgeous version with a brilliant arrangement behind it. When you compare that to the original recording of Elita Hoffpauir, it’s really a remarkable thing. The melody and words were already there, but they applied various aesthetics and turned it into something new again.”

Portions of the archive have been used in classes, film documentaries and radio shows, thus realizing Ancelet’s vision of a recycling project where its resources are shared among the community. He admits that it’s been a wild ride, but thanks to the collaborative partnership with Valcour and Rubber Boots, taking a ride through the archive will be that much easier.

This 15-track collection commemorates Johnnie Allan’s 60th anniversary in professional music with mostly previously released material (1979-1999) now appearing on CD for the first time. One of Allan’s classics, “La bague qui brille,” is the impetus for this release, as the song has remained popular since super group Cajun Born, of which Allan was a member, first cut it in 1989.

Unlike Allan’s other Jin releases that were typically English-sung swamp pop, this one features mostly Cajun French originals. On Charlie Pride’s “I’m So Afraid of Losing You,” Allan followed the Belton Richard formula by translating a country song into French; on the other hand, “La Robe” comes from a Mel Tillis song but with original lyrics, melody and arrangement. A few are bilingual, such as Hank Williams’ “You Win Again,” which is cast as syncopated swamp pop rather than hardcore honky-tonk.

Two new songs make their recorded debut here. The very poetic “Ça, ça, c’est dur (It’s, it’s so hard)” boils down to cherishing your loved ones while you still have them. The title track, obviously intended for a family member’s wedding, is sentimental enough to be a universal bliss anthem with such endearing lines as “Go with him / just know that we still love you.” But most importantly, these new tracks demonstrate that Allan can still write a good song and his formidable pipes show no signs of rust.

Buy Johnnie Allan’s Shine On on iTunes

Equipped with one of the best blue-eyed soul voices around, Gregg Martinez flirted with stardom in the ‘80s when Philly soul masterminds Victor Carstarphen and Keith Benson nearly launched him as the white Teddy Pendergrass. The Lafayette native returned home in 2006, where he, among other things, crooned with the legendary Boogie Kings and was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame as a King. His ninth album under his own name finds him reunited with several of his early ‘80s bandmates, which partially explains the studio chemistry felt here. Martinez is a helluva vocalist who holds nothing back, pouring every ounce of emotion and conviction into the tender ballads he sings. Towards the end of “Just Like That,” he pauses dramatically and then comes roaring back for a grandiose finale.

The song selection leans heavily on covers, but he chooses material that is soulfully felt and emoted accordingly. The inclusion of R. Kelly’s “When a Woman Loves” may seem surprising, but it’s classic soul from Kelly’s 2010 Love Letter. Closer to home, Martinez shines on two David Egan songs, especially on the clever “Blueblooded Girl,” which makes its recorded debut here. Though South of the Parish Line is mostly a mid-tempo affair, Martinez steps up the energy on three familiar tunes (“Back to Louisiana,” “C’est La Vie,” “Take Me to the River”), but he does so with an indigenous swamp pop/New Orleans swagger.

Buy Gregg Martinez’ South of the Parish Line on iTunes