Down Home Live
Stanley "Buckwheat" Dural didn't spend the evening of  Thanksgiving 2000 in a turkey-laden stupor. Instead, the longtime  leader of Buckwheat Zydeco led his band through this typically  high-energy set, recorded in his birthplace ofLafayette, Louisiana. The mode here is extended cuts--the shortest one clocks in at five and  a half minutes--that allow the band to shuffle as long as there are  dancers on the floor. While the amped-up bottom that Dural helped bring  to zydeco is here--as is an R&B; horn section that makes a cover ofKing Curtis's  "Soul Serenade" sound like the product of a bayou-bredVan  Morrison--Down Home Live!concentrates mostly on originals that bring  plenty of Cajun flavor. (One of two other remakes,Fats Domino's  "Walkin' to New Orleans," replaces the master's piano with Dural's  accordion and the rubboard of son Sir Reginald Master Dural.) This  could've been one of those in-concert discs that screams "You had to be  there," but the sound and feeling are so vivid that you might end up  feeling like you were.--Rickey Wright