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(As published in the Times of Acadiana ... )
Music from the Zydeco Kingdom
(Rounder)
If this album comes closer than any other to functioning as the perfect zydeco anthology, it also proves why assembling the perfect zydeco anthology is a self-defeating task: One song apiece by the likes of Nathan Williams and Boozoo Chavis is too few, yet two or more would both throw off the balance and render the two tracks allotted to Clifton Chenier a number unfit for a king. Still, from Amédé Ardoin's opening cut to Chris Ardoin's closing one, this album never quits, and, if any non-performer knows zydeco, it's compiler Michael Tisserand, to whose excellent book The Kingdom of Zydeco (now in paperback) this serves as an enjoyable soundtrack. Rating: Four-and-a-half boudin balls out of five.
(As published in the Times of Acadiana ... )
Nathan & the Zydeco Cha Chas
Let's Go!
(Rounder)
Nathan Williams' 1997 album was a live, career-summarizing testament next to which this fourteen-cut, all-new collection can't help feeling anti-climactic. Not that all of it does--the non-stop title cut is more hurricane than second wind, "Everything Happens for the Best" spotlights one of Williams' more sensitive vocals, and, for anyone who might still be in the dark, "Hard Times" is the thirty-six-year-old Williams' autobiography. Possible indicator of things to come: "Stay Out All Night" and "Zydeco Is All I Know," both of which feature the Iguana's Derek Huston on sax and suggest that no matter what Williams says, zydeco is hardly all he knows. Rating: Three-and-a-half et toi's out of five.
(As published in the Times of Acadiana ... )
Zydeco: The Essential Collection
(Rounder Heritage Series)
In case you don’t know, the loose talk among Louisiana-music fans with their ears to the ground is that Creole accordion music as we’ve always known it is in a bad way. No good new albums of that stripe since the deaths of Boozoo and Beau Jocque, they say. Not even many bad ones of that stripe since the deaths of Boozoo and Beau Jocque, I’ll add. And the recording dates on the material enshrined on this typically non-essential essential compilation (thirteen out of seventeen pre-’99) confirm the diagnosis. Still, if indeed the end is near, the herein anthologized music of Nathan, Geno, Buckwheat, Chris Ardoin, Boozoo, and Beau Jocque, all previously released though it is, will make for some pretty joyful dancing on the grave. Rating: Three-and-a-half ragings against the dying of the light out of five.
Music from the Zydeco Kingdom
