The Catch-back, vol. 1: Pee Wee & The Zydeco Boll Weevils - Marcia Ball - Roland Tchakounté - Boney Fields - Terrance Simien - Voodoo Blues - The Nightporters - Zydeco Playboys

...some that deserved to be featured here...

Pee Wee & The Zydeco Boll Weevils - Featuring Lady T (1995)

► The album

Roots and bewitching

A peculiar rarity by many aspects. First, it came out in 1995 on K7 only and up to now has never been reissued on CD it seems. This makes it a kind of collector's in our present digital era.

Second, the band itself is mysterious : who is this Pee Wee ? He would be one Ramone "Pee Wee" Gooden  who started to play the accordion after seeing Clifton Chenier many times. And the Boll Weevil (1) ? Pee Wee's nephew if we trust liner notes of another album featuring various artists : "Zydeco Shootout at El Sid O's" released in 1991, where the band play two songs  ("Don't Mess With My Ya Ya" and "Dance The Zydeco") as Pee Wee And The Zydeco Boll Weevils, along other more or less obscure Zydeco bands (Lynn August And The Hot August Knights, Warren Ceasar And Creole Zydeco Snap, Morris Ledet And The Zydeco Playboys, Jude Taylor And The Burning Flames, Zydeco Force). And who is Lady T ? Not the slightest idea !

The line-up of the band is also peculiar : seven members with no less than four playing accordion ! Probably a record in Zydeco music.

And lastly, none of these tracks are sung in Creole French, except a few "Hey toi!" here and there, a singularity in Zydeco.

This mysterious band plays a down-home rural Zydeco that smells good the mist over the bayou, Spanish moss hanging from oak trees, rotting pecan shells, burnt cut sugar cane, fried crawfish and... cow shit (listen to "Ride That Pony" and you'll see what I mean).

Their style, which has some underlined African echoes, is rather hypnotic in its structure, but don't be mistaken, these Boll Weevils are not amateurs, they know exactly what Zydeco is all about : dancing rhythm and energy blended with sorrowful melodies. Guitarist Rick Williams plays some nice parts and James Prejean Sr. can put out some hot bass lines like on "Zydeco What You Feel". But the biggest surprise comes probably from the singers : Pee Wee, Lady T and Boll Weevil. Lady T in particular sings with a strange bewitching voice that gives this album its unique identity.

We are closer here to Amédé Ardoin or (later) Clifton Chenier than to the contemporary Zydeco bands led by Nathan Williams or Step Rideau, but this roots rarity possesses a real freshness that makes it a must-listen for Zydeco fans. ■

(1) The "boll weevil" (Anthonomus grandis), is a beetle infesting cotton plants, that devastated US plantations in the 1920s, severely wrecking the cotton industry and subsequently ruining many sharecroppers and field workers who were forced to move up North to industrial cities like… Chicago where they exported the Delta blues.

__________________________________________

Marcia Ball - Presumed Innocent (2001)

► The album

Marcia is a ball !

The first words that come to mind when hearing Marcia Ball is… New Orleans ! The beat of New Orleans rhythm'n'blues piano and horns soaks this whole album from "Scene Of The Crime" to "You Make Me Happy". The impressive guest list features some of the best musicians of Louisiana and neighboring Texas. Over 50 when she recorded this collection of thirteen songs, the lady has kept the energy of a twenty years old. More, like good wine she bettered in maturing. A superb pianist, Marcia is also a very appealing singer : her slightly hoarse voice is like fogged by a haze coming from the wetlands.

From soul blues ("I'm Coming Down With The Blues"), R'n'B ("Somebody To Love"), swamp swing (the outstanding cover of Allen Toussaint's "You Make It Hard" with duet vocals with Delbert McClinton, "Fly On The Wall"...) and even lounge cool jazz ("She's So Innocent") to soul love ballads ("I Have The Right To Know", "Let The Tears Roll Down"), Zydeco numbers ("Thibodaux, Louisiana") or old boogie-woogie rockers ("Louella"), Marcia Ball is equally at ease on fast or slow tempos.

Born in Texas but grown up in Louisiana, she doesn't hesitate to look towards her native state for musical inspiration ("Shake A Leg"). Actually she co-produced the album with Texan Doyle Bramhall. The result is an exciting mix of New Orleans style and South East Texas blues. Didn't I tell you she's a ball ?!  ;-) ■

___________________________________

Roland Tchakounté - Blues Menessen (2010)

► The album

African griot blues

Ex-cel-lent ! Cameroon-born Roland Tchakounté, now based in Paris where lives an important African community, is most of all a citizen of the world, building bridges between blues and its African roots. And he does this by singing in his native language, bamileke. Actually, "Blues Menessen" means "blues of the black man", probably meaning not only the African but the Afro-american man.

The album's 12 titles are all so evenly good that I'm not going to pick up some as better than others. His blend of blues and African rhythms is just superb all the way. The sound, hypnotically carried by the talking drum-like percussions, by lines of Sunny Ade style bubbling bass guitar and by the imaginative lead guitar drives in different styles (slide, wah-wah...), is always neat and clear though powerful, behind Tchakounté's firm voice. Bamileke sounds nice though most of us do not understand the lyrics.

Both African music fans and blues aficionados will certainly love this African blues, as so many already did, from audiences at the Chicago Blues Festival to those of the greatest World Music events across the planet.

Tchakounté's blues concentrates the best parts of two continents : the soul touching melancholy of African songs and the spirit of the blues born from slavery, reminding us, if we ever forgot it, that the people who shaped blues music were mainly from African descent. Tchakounté reunites a scattered people through his highly breathtaking music. ■

Videos
● Canal Roland Tchakounté on YT : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEKy-HXLg89NQW0ICK5N0ag/featured
● Live on French TV : https://youtu.be/wfEOUOhRWhU & https://youtu.be/hNXE6eafKS8
● At the "Festival des Francophonies du Limousin" (with Mathias Bernheim on drums & percussions and Mick Ravassat on guitar), 2011 : https://youtu.be/pPesIrDcsPY
● At the New Morning, Paris :
→ 2015 : https://youtu.be/VxTbRpFLVn0
→ 2010 (with Mathias Bernheim on drums & percussions and Mick Ravassat on guitar) : https://youtu.be/gOCFwmyDT-4
● In Seclin, Quebec, 2010 : https://youtu.be/oRefvkTxH5c
● In Piacenza, Italy (full 10-video playlist), 2012 : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE15DC2B9C8585C60
● In Nureci, Sardinia (with Mick Ravassat on guitar, Tahiry Jamiro Razanamasy on bass and Karim Bouazza on drums), 2018 (71 mn) : https://youtu.be/1baMbDJe8OE
● At the Grésiblues Fest., France, 2021 : https://youtu.be/dVi6orBAEVo

___________________________________

Boney Fields & The Bone's Project - Hard Work (1999)

► The album

Funky Boney

If you like swinging funky rhythm'n'blues mixed with jazz and African colors, trumpet player/singer/composer/band leader Boney Fields might be your man. This first album, recorded in France during two recording sessions in 1997 and 1999, is full of horns, keyboards and guitar with the excellent Hervé Samb from Senegal on nine tracks.
Differently from what's been confusingly written in the presentation note above, bluesman Bernard Allison brought his 6-strings for three tracks (#2, 8 & 10) and his dad the great Luther plays slide on "Why Did I Do It". Special mention to the excellent bass man Mike Armoogum and his jazz fusion style (listen to what the guy does in "Ride To The City" !)

Born in the blues city of Chicago, Boney Fields perfectly knows his blues and funk roots. But he decided to venture further away : he's a musical globe-trotter much inspired by African ethnic jazz-oriented music, certainly a great admirer of musicians like Fela Kuti and Manu Dibango. This is obvious from the first title, "Trouble On Your Mind", when you hear the Fela Kuti's style horns riffs especially in the intro. He even takes a funky trip to reggae on "Express Yourself".

A good singer with a rather smooth but soulful voice, as much at ease in funky blues ("Your Mama & Your Papa", "Movin' On Up", "Why Did I Do It", "Call My Job", "Goin' Early") as in more exotic titles, Boney Fields takes Afro-American blues and funk to meet their African roots. Isn't Africa the real mother of rhythm after all ?

With now six albums on the meter, Fields also appears on albums by African reggae king Alpha Blondy, keyboardist from Mali Check Tidiane Seck, U.S. blues musicians Bernard & Luther Allison, Lucky Peterson, Kenny Neal, harmonicist James Cotton, saxophonist A.C. Reed, French bluesmen Bill Deraime and Sweet Screamin' Jones… Not bad references.

It's funky, it's rhythm'n'bluesy, it's horny (meaning horn driven ― don't be misled !), it's great. You won't help loving it ! ■

Boney Fields's web site : https://boneyfields.com/

Discography :
→ Hard Work, 1999
→ Red Wolf, 2003
→ We play the Blues, 2006
→ Live at Jazz à Vienne, 2009
→ Changing For The Future, 2013
→ Bump City, 2018

Videos 
● Boney Fields YT channel : https://www.youtube.com/c/BoneyFIELDSOfficiel
● At the excellent French festival Jazz à Vienne :
→ https://youtu.be/7gQ647HbJIk
→ https://youtu.be/3fY-vmKPYbw
[This concert is available on a CD+DVD package with two bonus tracks on the DVD.]

___________________________________

Terrance Simien & The Zydeco Experience - Live! Worldwide (2007)

► The album

Fiyo on the stage !

Terrance Simien is an old friend of Blue Dragon : this is the fifth album featured here. With this live, the Louisiana band did set fire, not on the bayou, but in the concert halls where they played across the world, becoming top international ambassadors of zydeco. Which doesn't prevent Simien and his excellent musicians to incorporate external elements to their music : reggae, African rhythms, steel drum…, all that with a hot tempo that certainly made the audiences jump up and dance encouraged by Simien's energetic calls.

We already wrote here our appreciation of Simien & his Zydeco Experience band, we can only confirm.
There's plenty great tracks on this great live, twelve to be exact !, that will also make you jump and dance. You'll wonder, as I do, how only six persons can produce such a rich sound. You'll certainly also enjoy the way Simien sings, and his liking for Caribbean and African rhythms and sounds. Like me, you'll be grateful for the nice version of Bob Dylan sorrowful "Mississippi", for the superb lead guitar on the excellent "Mardi Gras In The Country", for the melancholic reggae "Johnny Too Bad", for the long savory medley "Iko Iko/When The Saints Go Marching In/Brother John/Jambalaya"), just to mention a few. You'll bow down to William Terry's killing bass, and you'll laugh happily to the numerous French Louisiana creole exclamations from Simien and his accomplices.

With great showmen like these it's Mardi Gras in the country everyday ! ■

Videos of T. Simien & TZE here. 

___________________________________

V.A. - Voodoo Blues: The Devil Within (2010)

► The album

Sympathy for the evil

There's not much to add to the truly excellent presentation of this thematic double-CD compilation, an interesting project of the British Not Now Music label.

From the beginning blues has been considered as "the devil's music" by the so-called righteous White Anglo-Saxon Protestant enslaved themselves by their obscurantist religious neurotic obsession of Evil. Their evangelic churches, who apparently forgot that Jesus taught them to forgive sinners and love all men like brothers, do not seem to be bothered at all by racism though...

On this point, I've always been puzzled by the fact that the descendants of slaves have embraced so easily the religion of their former masters and were not spared by the Evil syndrome even if they spiced their religious practice with some long African ingredients, like the ancient but surviving West African voodoo cult, transformed into "hoodoo" on the other side of the Atlantic.

Note that this African-imported white/black magic is often the main subject of many blues songs, rather than the classic Christian conception of Evil/Devil itself. This is illustrated by many tracks on this compilation.

From the legend of Robert Johnson selling his soul to the Devil in exchange for blues talent, to Lightnin' Hopkins, John Lee Hooker or Screamin' Jay Hawkins, what better way to fight the evil side of mankind than to sing and joke about it as a kind of catharsis.

Most of the songs here are already known from blues aficionados, but having them gathered on the same compilation makes them even more meaningful. ■

___________________________________

The Nightporters - Rollercoaster (1999)

► The album

Wang dang... dudes

Here is a really nice swinging and jumping blues band from UK. A really good surprise, a breath of fresh sound and rhythm. Soulful and powerful vocals, hot shots of harmonica, great sounding rocking guitars, steady swinging bass and solid clockwork drums, the band delivers highly danceable pieces of barrel-house (rhythm'n') blues, with here and there additional piano or B-3 organ to spice up the gravy. Without any waste.

Of course the famous "Wang Dang Doodle" and "Catfish" are outstanding tracks, but the rest of the album can easily compete with these "hits", even slower tracks (like "Baby Please"). So I'm not gonna point out this or that song as better than the others, I take the whole menu as it is. The only weak point of the album : it's too short  !

These night porters chose a strange name though : they don't keep the door at all but jump inside on stage to cook a great boogie cake just for the fun of making people dance. I defy any listener to say she/he doesn't like stuff like that ! ■

Little bonus : The Nightporters live in Fredericton, New Brunswick (Canada), 2001 : https://youtu.be/b563WSL45FI

___________________________________

Zydeco Playboys - Just Do It (2021)

► The album

Sauerkraut gumbo

If I wanted to paraphrase Blues Blast John Mitchell's review joined to the album, I would facetiously confess : "I really appreciate good zydeco music but this is an enjoyable album." ;-)

Judging by the pictures of the band's members on the front cover and above all on their site (http://www.zydeco-playboys.com), they could as well have baptized themselves The Suspenders, but they preferred the same name as the band of charming zydeco artist Rosie Ledet. This is not a problem : these good-humored "Playboys" come from South Germany, there's no direct competition with Louisiana.

This album features zydeco songs indeed, but not exclusively : there's also country and Latin (with two tracks sung in Spanish, plus the final "Last Island" that sounds closer to Santana than to Rockin' Dopsie Jr).

The zydeco tracks are unpretentious dancing pieces full of good will, energy and a very German pounding beat. Nothing outstanding except "C'est tout y a!" (That's all there is, in Louisiana French creole), the humorous "Choucroute A La Allemand" (German style sauerkraut), their zydeco version of Chuck Berry's "You never can tell", and the jumping "Just do it".

Oddly enough a few numbers have not much to do with zydeco : the country ballad "Wonderlust", the salsa-tinged "Lleno De Vida!", the joking "Una Cerveza Y Dos Copas De Vino" half-way between Bavarian country dance and Tex-Mex polka, and the melancholic "Last Island" which closes the album with a Santanesque guitar.

Unpretentious and not unpleasant. ■

___________________________________