Another Saturday Night

The late Charlie Gillett, whose "The Sound of the City" was possibly the first intelligent book written about rock'n'roll and the growth of independent record labels on which much of it was first heard, was a proselytizer for Louisiana music, much as he was in later years for world music. After research including travelling through the state he launched his own record label, Oval in 1974, with the first version of this album. The CD version from Ace in 1990 added further tracks. The album was a compilation of music from many of the small labels in South Louisiana mainly during the 1960's. The original release was of historical significance in that it brought music from this area to the ears of a far wider audience. Included within the music in the album were tracks in the genre of swamp pop though the term itself wasn't to get used until years later - see the excellent book from John Broven entitled "South to Louisiana". There was another very good album, "The other song of the South: Louisiana Rock'n'Roll" compiled by Bill Millar, which came out shortly after "Another Saturday Night" which covered very much the same ground. If anyone from Ace is reading, my vinyl copy's pretty worn, is there any chance of getting this on CD with some extra tracks?

Charlie's loose objective in compiling this album was to give an idea of the music that would play on a typical cajun night out. If I can comment from my review of "The Later Jin Singles", "the sort of local bands represented here could well play rock'n'roll, swamp pop, national hits plus the odd cajun number all in one evening". Hence the title of the album and the title track itself which had been a national hit for Sam Cooke. Clint West's version does full justice to the song with a nice juicy horn section tooting away behind Clint. It's very easy to imagine this one as a dance hall favourite. It's always good to come across new names and both Clint and Tommy McClain, bass player in Clint's band the Boogie Kings, star strongly in this selection. The pair turn up together for "Try to find another man", one of the more obscure Righteous Brothers numbers. McClain takes the high notes a la Bobby Hatfield, and fruity long parps from the horns really make this track. Tommy also gets a couple of solos backed by the Boogie Kings. "Sweet Dreams" is the Don Gibson song but stretched out to extract maximum drama, the bass line emphasised and hammered piano in the foreground. "Before I grow to old" comes from the joint pens of Domino, Bartholomew and (Robert Charles) Guidry with the latter better known as Bobby Charles, one of the founding fathers of swamp pop. Another good song, delivered well with those splendid horns again.

The device of taking a country hit and giving it a bayou makeover is also adopted by Belton Richard for "I'm a Lonesome Fugitive" originally from Merle Haggard. It's sung entirely in French in line with the cajun approach and there's a prominent fiddle in the backing. Belton gets three more numbers, Clifton Chenier`s bouncy "Oh Lucille" with Belton's own accordion strongly featuring, "Laisser les Cajuns Dancer", translated as "Let the good times roll", the popular New Orleans song, and "Another Sleepless Night" originally from Neil Sedaka, with fiddle again plus dobro or pedal steel, not sure which. They're all sung in French and the man's own accordion is ever-present. The same accordion also stars in the break of "The Promised Land", Johnnie Allen's most famous number (and mini-hit) which, if you haven`t heard it is a cover of the Chuck Berry song. A historical note is that Richard was inducted in the Cajun French Music Association's Hall of Fame in 1997 its inaugural year.

Straight cajun music (if that's not a non-sequitur!) appears in the shape of Austin Pitre's "Two step de bayou teche" and Cajun Gold's "Georgie Lou", the latter being sung in English which is unusual.

Soul music is also present in Gary Walker's, James Brown influenced "Who needs you so bad" with backing again by the excellent Boogie Kings. In addition we have the up-tempo "Don't mess with my man" originally from NO veteran Irma Thomas but here from Margo White.

I've saved some of the best numbers till last. The two but effectively three Cookie & the Cupcakes numbers - Carol Fran sings with the band - are as swampy as you're going to get anywhere. Wailing voice from either Cookie (Huey Thierry) or Sheldon Dunaway or both - they tended to alternate - over a sonic murk of boogie piano, saxes and voices. They're absolutely relentless. On "Breaking up is hard to do" the boys manage to sound even more suicidal than Jivin' Gene the song's writer. The same piano is banging away behind Carol Fran as she gives us her version of "The Great Pretender", originally of course from the Platters but subsequently covered by everyone from Freddie Mercury to Gene Pitney via Roy Orbison. I'm sure Carol reckons she could whup the lot and I might even agree with her.

That's most of it if not quite all of it. I omitted to mention there's a good fiddle, pedal steel and accordion version of "Jolie Blon", the cajun anthem, from Vin Bruce. But I think you'll see what I mean, that Charlie has tried to give us a representative selection. I said in my opening para that this album is of historical significance. What I didn't say is there's some damn good music in it as well.

This is a simply wonderful compilation of fairly obscure music from Louisiana. It is not a cajun compilation although it does contain examples of the classic stompin accordian sound. Rather it is a melting pot of American influences ( Soul. Country, Blues, R&B and cajun). Its a bit like spending a night playing pool and drinking beer in a juke joint somewhere in the Bayous. This would be the music on the jukebox.

I bought this album on vinyl in the 70s and it was widely regarded as a classic back then. I played it to death. I`m very happy to have it on cd now!

Sublime americana