Music
Ray Landry and Friends, Mes Racines Cadien Sont Creaux (My Cajun Roots Are Deep) (Swallow)
Ray Landry’s latest is not as dancehall-centric as his last disc, 1999’s Ray Landry and the Basile Cajun Band, which featured the last recording sessions of beloved accordionist Nonc Allie […]
Joel Martin and the Family Band, L’Ange de la Chapelle (Independent)
The Pine Leaf Boys’ Wilson Savoy and Lafayette Rhythm Devils’ Blake Miller aren’t the only hot shots to hail from accordionbuilding lineage. Meet Joel Martin, the 22-year-old grandson of accordion […]
J. Paul, Jr. and the Zydeco Nubreedz, Stronger (Independent)
Early on in his career, J. Paul, Jr. was dubbed “Keith Frank, Jr.” due to his heavily influenced/copycat sound. That changed by the time the Houstonian released his fourth disc, […]
Various Artists, Prairie Cajun Music (Acadiana)
Prairie Cajun Music comes from 1993. The CD craze still hadn’t caught on everywhere, at least not at Acadiana Sounds in Eunice, Louisiana. Many of the label’s early releases were […]
High Performance, Live from Breaux Bridge (Swallow)
Long before Steve Riley envisioned the Cajun super group Racines, Mamou Playboys’ drummer Kevin Dugas had a similar idea: model a topnotch band after the Belton Richard/Aldus Roger ensembles of […]
Austin Pitre and the Evangeline Playboys, Essential Early Cajun Recordings of Austin Pitre & the Evangeline Playboys (Swallow)
In recent years, Swallow Records has expanded its longstanding Cajun Pioneer series with reissues of recordings by such figureheads as Adam Hebert (2005) and Joe Bonsall (2008). Its latest installment, […]
J.J. Caillier, The Zydeco Knockout (Caillier)
Zydeco stopped being an old man’s game in the late ’80s when Zydeco Force turned it upside down and modernized it, thereby ringing in the era of nouveau zydeco. If […]
Buckwheat Zydeco, Lay Your Burden Down (Alligator)
It seems like only yesterday when Buckwheat Zydeco commemorated his 20th anniversary with the career retrospective The Buckwheat Zydeco Story. A blink of a decade later, 2009 marks Stanley Dural, […]
Garland Thompson, The First Time (T-Do)
Vermilion Parish is Louisiana’s biggest cattle-producing parish, so it stands to reason that with that many cattle, cowboys and an affinity for country music will follow. Apparently Vermilion Parish has […]
