Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys Ride the Wind!

On their latest album Voyageurs, Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys catch the cool Gulf Coast breezes that wash away troubles and hurts and turn passing time into its essence: music that heals, invigorates, and challenges. Music that gently pushes listeners up out of whatever doldrums we may be in and onto the dance floor, in body and spirit. 

Picking up from and transcending the righteous outrage at environmental catastrophe that fired their Grammy-nominated 2011 album Grande Isle, this band of Acadjen superstars replaces the melancholy of that beautiful previous album with a celebration of rejuvenation, ironically rooted in the tradition and resilience of South Louisiana music culture. The works of Cajun and Creole musical masters — including Canray Fontenot, Denis Mcgee, Dewey Balfa, Abe Manuel, Nathan Abshire, Willie Broussard and Boozoo Chavis — are honored and presented in daringly fresh arrangements to a new generation, not as museum pieces but as vital creations that are still breathing, jiving, rocking, and rolling. Fashions, trends, and even mortality itself be damned! 

Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys, all veteran musical masters themselves, chart new directions here as to where this music can go, and its a deftly mapped voyage indeed. Most noteworthy are the individual contributions of fiddler/vocalist/composer Kevin Wimmer and his evident role in spurring Steve Riley’s graceful accordion flights, and the band’s exquisite harmonies and wildly joyous instrumental dancing. Brazos Huval’s bass takes us funky places we might not have known this music could go, and it’s a fun trip indeed, while guitarist Sam Broussard, drummer Kevin Dugas and guest performers Eric Adcock on organ. Vocalists Calie Guidry and Maegan Berard from Sweet Cecilia build the swirling, rapturous momentum of this album, which picks up with the opening number Au Revoir Grand Mamou, chugs and reels through a dozen tunes old and new, including a sweetly unique take on “La Danse de Mardi Gras,” and just doesn’t stop until the band hits the last notes of its closer, Wimmer’s own composition “Bottle It Up.”

It’s time to hit replay and take this fine happy trip again with Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys. Long may we ride.