Various Artists, Boppin’ By the Bayou: Rock Me, Mama! - album review

Download: Popcorn Blues; Switch Blade Sam; Havin’ a Whole Lotta Fun; Good Morning Blues

Streaming services are all very well if your tastes stretch little further than the vanilla mainstream, but what if you want to hear something like Nathan Abshire’s “Popcorn Blues”, one of my all-time favourite recordings.

Abshire was a French-speaking Cajun accordionist whose instrument bore the legend “Good Times Killin’ Me”, and whose music – in this case a louche boogie with Nathan’s garbled vocal roar punctuated by a secondary vocalist’s whoops, moans and mutters of acclaim – fully bore out that claim.

It’s not even available through iTunes, so just about the only way to hear it is by buying this latest in Ace’s Boppin’ By the Bayou series of feral Cajun swamp-pop delights from the Fifties and Sixties, which also includes prime cuts from the likes of Johnnie Allan, Johnny Jano and the magnificently named Vorris Shorty LeBlanc. Primal good times guaranteed.