Stomping 2010 - 1

It's day three of my US music trip and already there;s been much to enjoy. After flying to Houston we drove to Lafayette and caught a couple of acts at the Festival Louisiane. I've seen Sonny Landreth, a big local favourite, quite a few times and he's always struck me as being too loud and too heavy rock, but on a big stage he was OK. But the star of the evening was Sharon Jones, who I'd never seen before - a dynamic. big voiced soul singer with bags of energy - with the Dap-Kings, an eight piece band which can lay down a great soul/funk feel.
Yesterday morning, after meeting with other Stompers, we visited the La Louisiane record studio where many of the great Cajun, zydeco and swamp pop artists were recorded. These included the Shondells (Warren Storm, Rod Bernard and Skip Stewart), and immediately after leaving the studio I found a copy of their one and only LP in a nearby flea market. Three of us travelled around Cajun country in the drizzle, stopping off at a boudin and crawfish place where the tables had a bucket in the middle for the crawfish tails. Then on to Baton Rouge where we ended up at Teddy's Juke Joint near Zachary, one of the few remaining juke joints around. It's a glitzy but dilapidated place overseen by larger than life patron Teddy, with a selection of teddy bears and liceense number plates adorning the walls. Performing was Rudy Richard, a guitarist who played with Slim Harpo, and Larry 'Lightning' Washington. The material was fairly predictable but the band was pretty goood.
Photos were be uploaded to the blog in due course. Cheers.