After 20 years in existence, the Soul Rebels furiously unleash a barrage of musicianship, originality, and range of accomplishment every bit as impressive and inspiring as today’s historically black college and university marching show bands from which the Rebels draw inspiration. For example, a version of the Eurythmics’ signature 1983 hit “Sweet Dreams (Are Made [...]
When I was coming of age along the Northeast shoreline during the 1970s, my favorite local band was Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes, a horn-laden R&B outfit spawned by the fertile music scene in Asbury Park, New Jersey. The Jukes’ first album, I Don’t Want to Go Home remains a blue-eyed-soul masterpiece to this [...]
When The Village Voice described New Orleans’ Soul Rebels as “the missing link between Louis Armstrong and Public Enemy,” they got it only half right. The Soul Rebels were deeply influenced by hip-hop, but Armstrong? Not so much. The Voice overlooked a more relevant phenomenon: Marching bands. The marching show bands represent and animate the [...]
Cedric Watson helped make the Pine Leaf Boys stars in the emerging Cajun/Creole “new wave,” recording a CD with the band, Blues de Musicien, which was quickly nominated for a Grammy award. Following that, Watson recorded three of his own Grammy-nominated CDs for Valcour Records (Cedric Watson, L’Esprit Creole and Live at the Blue Moon), [...]
There’s never been a recording quite like this one. Three highly accomplished Cajun revivalists—each representing a successive generation, each a musical pioneer, and each a highly respected bandleader in his own right—spontaneously coming together in an informal setting to pay their mutual respects to a musical heritage that has now become their shared inheritance. They [...]
UPDATED What happens when producer Louis Michot of the Lost Bayou Ramblers translates rock classics into contemporary Cajun/Creole music? Alchemy, pure alchemy. Not that the originals by the Who, the Doors, Neil Young and more weren’t 14-karat to begin with, but try making something new out of any one of them that still retains a [...]
Maria Muldaur intuitively knows what a song needs to suit her vocal style. From “I’m a Woman” and the Memphis Jug Band’s “Garden of Joy” in the folk revival days to the sultry and seductive “Midnight at the Oasis”—a song now familiar to millions around the world. Throughout the 1990s, Muldaur recorded a series of [...]
The Lost Bayou Ramblers will perform with former Violent Femmes front man Gordon Gano at the Voodoo Experience on Saturday, October 29, and the night before they’ll throw a single release party at d.b.a. The evening’s festivities will celebrate the release of a 12-inch vinyl single “Bastille,” a track from the band’s upcoming Mammoth Waltz. [...]
[Updated] The collaboration between alto saxophonist Donald Harrison, bassist Ron Carter, and drummer Billy Cobham blossomed into something more during a 2002 tour featuring Harrison, Carter, and Cobham with the late pianist James Williams. 2004’s Heroes is an extraordinarily reflective and intimate affair, interspersing three artful Harrison-Carter duets between a series of Harrison and Carter [...]
Come Get Some what? It’s a Rosie Ledet CD, so what’d’ya think? Sex, of course. Or, more precisely, decidedly female zydeco soul filled with double entendres and lots of hip-shaking grooves, a sound at which Rosie Ledet typically excels, especially in live settings. Based on her last CD effort, 2005’s Pick It Up, one veteran [...]
