We are facing a series of great quality albums regarding cajun and specially zydeco music Maison de Soul and Swallow labels belong to Flat Town Music Company, probably one of the most important record companies in these musical fields His owner Floyd Soileau founded it in 1957 in Louisiana Now Flat Tone Records has got one of the largest cajun, zydeco and swamp pop music catalogues which makes it become one of the reference companies on these musical styles Cajun music belongs to French speaking people musical heritage They lived on Louisiana bayous after being expelled by English people in 1755 They settled and rooted on those swamps areas and developed their own culture, gastronomy and kept their language, dialects and traditional music as an identity sign to make them feel different from the Americanised English people, living in harmony with native Indians and black people Cajun music grew up over these musical basis during the following two centuries, receiving influences from blues, accordion music performed by many German colonist settled in Texas but also by Mexican music, New Orleans dixieland or Irish violin players All these different influences shaped a later new style called zydeco gathering all these bright colourful mixture of sounds To round up this short introduction, only mention there are different hypothesis about where the word ‘zydeco’ comes from In my opinion, the most acceptable one is it comes from the word ‘zarico’ which designed the poorest black people, who even did not have money to buy meat, so they could only ate vegetables, fruits and specially pulses Originally zydeco kept strong ties with cajun music, that is to say doing ballads, polkas, two-steps and waltz, these harmonies and musical structures, specially after post-war, were gradually combined or replaced with other ones that came for black music, such as blues or boogie-woogie But zydeco has evolved so much and nowadays it is easy to find soul, disco, dance, rap or hiphop influences on it To give a few details about every cd, mention that Wilfred Chevis is a Louisiana born singer and accordion player who has settled in the south of Texas where he now lives His father taught him to play accordion and before forming his own band he usually played in home parties and dancing He recorded his first album for Maison de Soul label in 1985 Wilfred Chevis and his band are now habitual musicians on the local blues scene from Houston, Texas to Lafayette, Louisiana This interesting recording gathers ten songs from John Ardoin to Clifton Chenier compositions Big Red and his Zydeco Playmakers are one of these joyful delicious groups able to rise a dead man since they begin to play their festive easy music Thirteen dance joyful songs, where vocals and marvellous Big Red’s accordion arrangements prevail, together with the rest of band’s good instrumentation It is a great pleasure listen to Miss Rosie Ledet’s suggestive voice and diatonic accordion sound This creole woman’s songs will undoubtedly captivate the audience Her singing and playing backed with her own band is a delightful unforgettable experience I eagerly recommend you Chris Ardoin is a zydeco music magician and one of the best actual representatives of it Besides, he is a multi-instrumentalist who, besides singing, writes songs, plays accordion, guitar, bass, keyboards and scrub-board You will find him on this excellent album backed by his usual band The NuStep, who do a cool performing giving the perfect support to Chris Ardoin who appears brighter and more sensuous than ever The cd is dedicated to the victims of Rita and Katrina hurricanes Jeffrey Broussard & The Creole Cowboys bring us the real essence of southern creole Louisiana bayous folk music along seventeen well done songs Jeffrey is am original entertainer with an overflowing energy, able to faithfully illustrate with a faultless sound and music the most real tradition of this genre Like Chris Ardoin, Jeffrey sings, plays accordion, violin, bass, guitar, keyboards and writes songs too So, this is another cd to be taken into account And finally Joe Bonsall And The Orange Playboys approach us with their music to the most ‘cajun’ roots music of these six records series The cd includes twenty seven tracks compiled from other previous Joe Bonsall recordings for Swallow Records from 1964 to 1975 Obviously the majority of songs are waltzes and some polkas too, all them sung in English and ‘Patois’ You will find John Bonsall on vocals and accordion, Wilson LeJeune on steel guitar, Bobby Caswell on second guitar and vocals, Clifton Newman on drums and vocals and Floyd Leblanc on violin and vocals Another impressive record too In short words, we are facing a lovely fine collection specially devoted to all zydeco and cajun music lovers, but also highly recommendable to those people not really familiar with these musical genres All these records become an essential tool to introduce people into this vitalistic, pleasant colourful way of approaching an original culture, a kind of music and, over all, a way of living