Keith Frank & the Soileau Zydeco Band, Live at Slim’s Y-KiKi Vol. II (Independent)

Keith Frank & the Soileau Zydeco Band, Live at Slim’s Y-KiKi Vol. II, album cover, OffBeat Magazine, November 2014

On his second live album recorded at the same venue, the faux Tropicana Slim’s Y-KiKi, Keith Frank repeatedly asks the question “Do you wanna go back?” consistently followed by a litany of stomping beats.

But Frank, a lifelong zydeco musician and frontman of his own band for over four decades now, can indeed go back, not to mention deep and long into a sizeable catalogue that extends exponentially beyond these 16 tracks/20 selections. Yet only a few tunes briefly recall what Frank sounded like back in the day before shifting into newer textures like electronic funk and splattery, wall-shaking bass notes.

The Frank foundation-building hits “What’s His Name?,” “Sweet Pea” and “Get on Boy” are all here but substantially modernized, a sign that the zydeco boss continuously evolves his craft. Interestingly, “Stepping to the Rhythm” and “Patate Doucet” are torrid, trance-like jams that would be candidates for Jam On airplay on Sirius XM, except Frank and the Soileau Zydeco Band aren’t exactly of the herbal hippie kid ilk.

Additionally, Frank unifies his audience further by hollering out the names of towns (“Cecilia!,” “Basile”), jokes with them (“If you’re too drunk to count to 10, you probably need to sit down anyway”) and launches tune after tune in rapid succession.

If you try to dance to this one in its entirety, consider getting a blood transfusion beforehand.