Give Him Cornbread Live
This posthumous release from one of Cajun music's most popular acts is a delight, an excellent reminder of why Beau Jocque was so popular. Dissatisfied with traditional zydeco, he created a kind of fusion, incorporating various other styles from straight-ahead blues to rock & roll.Give Him Cornbread(also the title of one of Jocque's greatest hits) provides a fairly comprehensive sample of this, and it's a rollicking good time, to boot. Jocque was very good at what he did, and on this recording, the band is tight and enthusiastic. Recorded on zydeco's home ground of southern Louisiana and eastern Texas, this performance has the fiery energy so essential to good zydeco, plus several highly inventive moments; among them, a fascinating cover version ofJohn Lee Hooker's classic "Boogie Chillen," not to mentionBig Joe Williams's "Baby, Please Don't Go." There's plenty of traditional music as well, though, with lots of original songs (personal favorite: the slow, sultry, bluesy "Brownskin Woman"), plus material from Jocque's most direct influence,Boozoo Chavis. With Jocque's death, zydeco lost one of its greatest innovators;Give Him Cornbreaddoes nothing to belie that notion.--Genevieve Williams