Swamp Music VOL. V – Krazy Kats / Louisiana Swamp-Rock & Pop

This is easily the most satisfying volume in the Trikont Cajun and zydeco series for anybody interested in the roots of the music’s modern sound. Mostly recorded in the ’60s with a couple of ’70s numbers thrown in for measure, it contains 18 cuts, and there isn’t a dud in the bunch. The well-known artists represented are Beausoleil, Johnnie Allan, and Belton Richard. But there are obscure finds here as well: there’s Cookie & the Cupcakes and their Cajun read of „Mathilda,“ Rufus Jagneaux, and Doris Matte. The set kicks off with Allan doing a fine version of Chuck Berry’s „The Promised Land,“ guitars are fiery and twanging all over the place, there’s nary an accordion anywhere. It’s the rhythm section that makes Berry’s rock anthem into a Cajun stomp. Beausoleil’s „Zydeco Gris-Gris“ cruises at flying altitude and features a breathy female vocal, half spoken/half sung in lusty Creole French. The accordion, fiddles, and electric guitars all swirl around her in cut time, making this a shimmying dance tune if there ever was one. Things really get sweaty when Clifton Chenier and Belton Richard cover Willie Dixon’s „My Babe.“ This is the zydeco blues, Louisiana style, full of deep, greasy accordion grooves courtesy of Chenier — in fact, he just plays the hell outta the thing — with Bernard blowing that tenor sax with a bar-walking swagger. Guitars pick and pop, and pianos plink and plonk through the middle, but Chenier drives this tune with the sheer force of his will. They do the same thing later on in the set with „Shake, Rattle & Roll.“ Doris Matte’s zydeco shuffle „Hey Tret Fille“ is stylish for its call and response chorus and the dual lead lines of the fiddles and guitars sounding like they came from a Spade Cooley boogie. Cookie & the Cupcakes‚ track, „Mathilda,“ is the best thing here. This is R&B shouting — as in Big Joe Turner — crossed with the tender doo wop soul of Ben E. King, played by a band as cool as Big Jay McNeeley’s. The accordion is somewhat hidden in the mix, but it’s the rhythm — though 4/4 in conception — syncopated in every chorus, that throws it back to the Cajun root. Finally, it’s worth mentioning Allan’s killer version of Jim Ford’s „Ju Ju Man.“ If anybody wanted to be a rocker it was Allan. The Cajun sound is gone in all but the accordion break in the middle eight, but the track is pure Chuck Berry swampabilly. This hot set is chock-full of perverse surprises and hidden gems.