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CD06
SONNY LANDRETH
THE CRAZY CAJUN RECORDINGS
(Edsel Records)
If you took Daune Allman, Ry Cooder, David Lindley and Leo Kottke and mixed them together, the end result would be one formidable slide guitarist, Sonny Landreth is just that person. Although born in Canton, Mississippi, the town that produced Elmore James, Landreth would grow up in the
Acadian metropolis of Lafayette, Louisiana. Sonny started out playing the trumpet but soon picked up the guitar and has never looked back. In 1979 he became the first-ever white member of Clifton Chenier's Red Hot Louisiana Band.
The music on The Crazy Cajun Recordings are Sonny's earliest recordings culled from two sessions, the first in 1973 at the age of twenty-two, and the second in 1977. Twenty tracks in all with about half of them coming from a single afternoon's work from the first session of mainly solo acoustic material.
Country blues gems like Mississippi Blues, She Left Me A Mule, I Know You Rider and Reverend Robert Wilkins' Prodigal Son are just superb. With the later session Sonny recorded covers of songs by Louisiana songwriter Jimmy Donley. These tracks range from the radio friendly Forever Lillie Mae, to tender ballads, That's The Way It's Gonna Be and Ain't Gonna Worry, to the rockin' Good Enough For Me with a very catchy melody, and the Texas shuffle rhythm of Rise Shining.
The Crazy Cajun Recordings is an excellent album that gives you that rare opportunity to hear a master slide guitarist at work in his formative years.
Eric Black
Blue Country 101 FM
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