Music
D.L. Menard, Happy Go Lucky (Swallow Records)
Cajun honky tonker DL Menard is best known for his immortal “La Porte Dans Arriere” (“The Back Door”) that sold 500,000 copies alone in 1962 and has been a staple […]
Walter Jr., Standing on the Word (Independent)
Lafayette’s Walter Jr. has covered a lot of ground with his last few releases: greasy, slippery funk; raucous blues; jazz and quiet acoustic folk. But that was the secular side […]
Brother Dege, Folk Songs of the American Longhair (GolarWash Labs & Records)
The days of singing about the hardscrabble life made famous by many a bluesman are over, so why keep reinventing the same wheel? At least that’s the credo of Brother […]
Jo Jo Reed, My Time to Shine (Happy Hill Records)
It’s getting to be a familiar story. If you want a zydeco CD that sounds slamming good, just head on over to the Candy Man, a.k.a. Chris Ardoin. In recent […]
Chubby Carrier, Zydeco Junkie (Swampadellic)
Chubby Carrier has spent a career perfecting his party package live shows, so it stands to reason that this would be more of the same, right? No, not quite. Carrier […]
Bayou Deville, See Sharp and Be Natural (New Range Records)
Though the title serves as both a musical pun and a modest credo to live by, this is actually a live recording of exemplarily played traditional Cajun music without the […]
Travis Matte and the Kingpins, Pop It (Matte Productions)
Matte refuses to be confined by preconceived cultural norms. Novelty sexual content is where he’s always shaken his biggest moneymaker, but not the first of any genre to hint what […]
Cedric Watson: Fiddling With Tradition
Canray Fontenot, the man Arhoolie’s Chris Strachwitz dubbed “The last of the great Cajun and Creole fiddlers,” died on July 29, 1995 after a long bout with cancer. Though two […]
Various Artists, Pure Swamp Pop Gold, Vol. 10 (CSP Records)
Compilations such as these are generally vehicles to promote a label’s roster and thereby garner sales. That’s true here, as the majority of these crooners and swooners have been CSP […]
Ayla Miller, Some Super Silly Snappy Songs and a Few Works of Genius (Independent)
The windy 12-word title pretty much says it all about Ayla Miller’s debut CD, an enjoyable collection of originals that were written as a pre-teen and teen. The budding, 15-year-old […]
