Vu-Du Menz
This impressive album assures that New Orleans music will live strong and healthy into the next generation. A collaboration between a couple of once upstarts, now stalwarts of the new roots-music generation, this is good-time music. Corey Harris plays slide-steel guitar and about 90 other styles, slipping his strings between the 88 piano keys that Henry Butler dances across. On the collaborative tracks, which make up most of the album, their two instruments leave no room for others. They're tight as yarn, weaving together like a Mardi Gras Indian headdress. Each also makes solo performances. They've been compared to great partnerships like Tampa Red and Georgia Tom, but this suggests too much of a historical sound; Harris and Butler are thoroughly modern. Comparing them to Professor Longhair and Snooks Eaglin is accurate in spirit, butVü-Dü Menzis so fun, no background is needed to enjoy it; even Martians would shake their hips to this much swing.--Robert Gordon