One of the great things about the whole ‘Americana’ explosion is that it’s helped put the emphasis back on performance rather than clinical studio methods where making records is concerned. The great American folk tradition is, after all, based upon people sitting together, making eye contact and sharing the joy of creating music something greater than the sum of the individual parts.
One of the most inherently joyful of all folk music strands is Cajun and when it’s played with as much love, enthusiasm and feeling as it is on ‘The Right Combination’, then there’s hard to find music that could possibly sound more life-affirming.
A loose, but highly skilful aggregation of seven players including all three of the Foghorn Trio and Richmond Fontaine guitarist Paul Brainard, accordion player JESSE LEGE, JOEL SAVOY and THE CAJUN COUNTRY REVIVAL convened at Savoy’s rural Louisiana studio (birthplace of The Foghorn Trio’s ‘Sud de la Louisiane’ LP) to lay down the tracks making up ‘The Right Combination’ in a suitably relaxed and convivial atmosphere. The brief was pretty much to set up, start playing, have a run through and hit record.
It might sound far too simple an approach to be true, but it’s equally difficult not to get caught up in the sheer exhilaration of the music their communal session has bequeathed us. Many of the melodies are dominated by either Lége’s supple French accordion or Savoy’s dextrous, Byron Berline-style fiddling although Nadine Landry’s upright bass and Ned Folkerth’s drums mostly play it relatively straight, injecting a Rock’n’Roll kick into the proceedings.
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The energy is palpable. Tracks like ‘Ouvre la Porte’ and ‘Courville’s Fetish’ simply smoke, while ‘Let’s Go to Bayou Courtableau’ is driven by a Rockabilly-tinged energy and fair bowls along. The vocals are mostly the domain of Lége’s swampy growl, although Nadine Landry takes over on the marvellous ‘Tippy Toeing.’
The tempo lets up for a few waltzes (‘Wondering’, ‘My Dear Little One’) and two-steps (the light-hearted ‘The Hens Aren’t Laying’), although the ‘straightest’ Country track by a mile is the Porter Wagoner-penned title track: a perky tale of the enduring qualities of a good marriage sung with feeling by Nadine Landry and her Foghorn Trio colleague Caleb Klauder.
As with the Foghorn Trio’s output, ‘The Right Combination’ puts community and humanity before profit or chasing the zeitgeist for diminishing returns. It’s warm, big-hearted and inclusive and its’ sincerity shines like a beacon in these increasingly desperate days. Time to get back to the country once again, methinks.
Jesse and Joel website
The Foghorn Trio online
Valcour Records online
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