Tab Benoit: Power of the Pontchartrain (Elite)

 |   |  <1 min read

Tab Benoit: Sac-au-lait Fishing
Tab Benoit: Power of the Pontchartrain (Elite)

Bluesman Benoit teams up again with Lousiana's LeRoux, the rockin' outfit he worked with on his swamp-lightnin' album Brother to the Blues of last year which was nominated for a Grammy.

This is more of the same, but better: Benoit's guitar has a sharp and stinging quality, he digs into some Cajun-flavoured blues, and on the title track funks it up with LeRoux (who were Clarence 'Gatemouth' Brown's backing band for a long time -- see My Back Pages for my encounter with Gatemouth).

Along the way he also makes over Buffalo Springfield's For What It's Worth as a dark and menacing warning from the bayou, bends those notes and fires off some electrifying energy, and on Julie Miller's Midnight and Lonesome he turns in a powerful and spare ballad heavy with portent.

This is undeniably swamp blues from the bayou -- but with a whole lot more energy than the laidback style of Tony Joe White.

Benoit's raw vocals and angular guitar work make for a blues album of great depth, and one which rocks.

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Black Sabbath: Greatest Hits (Universal)

Black Sabbath: Greatest Hits (Universal)

There's no particular reason for mentioning this 14 track collection (which includes Paranoid, Iron Man, War Pigs etc) given that it isn't the first or probably the last such collection: but... > Read more

Finn Andrews: One Piece at a Time (Nettwerk)

Finn Andrews: One Piece at a Time (Nettwerk)

As the mainman for his band the Veils, singer-songwriter Finn Andrews has turned in a more-than-respectable decade-plus collection of original songs and has rightly been hailed, right from when he... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

Francoise Hardy: La Pluie Sans Parapluie (Virgin)

Francoise Hardy: La Pluie Sans Parapluie (Virgin)

At first glance this might just seem to be one for those who knew the title meant "Rain Without an Umbrella" or just want a bit of that breathy chanteuse mood music for dinner parties.... > Read more

GUEST WRITER ALEC MORGAN looks back at the car culture of Auckland's Queen St in the Seventies

GUEST WRITER ALEC MORGAN looks back at the car culture of Auckland's Queen St in the Seventies

Auckland’s Queen Street has long been a place for young people with wheels. In 1976 the cars would converge from mainly out West (Te Atatu, Henderson, Massey, Glen Eden, Blockhouse Bay),... > Read more