Offbeat
Magazine
New Orleans, LA - November 2006
By Dan Willging
Steve Riley gave it a lot of thought. If he were to form
a band outside his venerable Mamou Playboys aggregation,
who of his favorite musicians would be in it? Fortunately,
the answers weren’t exactly rocket science—Feufollet
whiz kid Chris Stafford on guitar and Balfa Toujours/Red
Stick Ramblers’ Kevin Wimmer and Charivari’s
Mitch Reed on twin fiddles. (Reed, BeauSoleil’s
recently anointed bassist, also plays bass when the arrangements
call for a single fiddle). Toss in the Red Stick Ramblers’
Glen Fields behind the traps and Riley, of course, on
accordion, and voila! The Cajun super group was born,
a dream team outlet of Acadiana’s best talent. To
top it all off, the christened moniker of “Racines”
couldn’t be more apropos; it’s French for
roots.
Racines certainly lives up to its name with material stemming
from the roots of Cajun and Creole music. At the group’s
core are several, earthy Dennis McGee twin-fiddle duets
that sound as if Reed and Wimmer stepped out of the 19th
Century. To give the proceedings an archaic, dusty ambience,
producer Dirk Powell ingeniously mixed the record monaurally
to resemble what Cajun LPs sounded like in the ’50s
and ’60s.
On several songs, Riley and Wimmer play the melody and
the rhythm in unison, recalling a time in Creole music
when the accordionist and fiddler play in tandem.
Even though every member of Racines already had a bread-and-butter
gig and scheduling mutually convenient studio times posed
challenges, the debut disc never feels rushed just to
meet a self-imposed deadline. Instead, the vibe is loose
and natural with plenty of interaction between all. On
the bluesy zydeco jam groove of “My Baby She’s
Gone to Stay,” Wimmer and Riley trade hot licks
in call-and-response fashion. “Crowley 2-Step”
finds Stafford flat-picking the tune’s time-honored
melody line at a brisk pace after Riley and Wimmer have
had a rip with it. The fiddle duet “Reel Perdu/Fruge’s
Reel” continuously builds until they practically
channel the mounting intensity into a sonic storm. Powell
jumps into the foray with his clucking clawhammer banjo,
and there are a few mind-messing moments where you can’t
discern if this is really a Cajun fiddle duet or a surreal
Appalachian hoedown. Even though they frame the concept
by honoring those that preceded them, all inhibitions
were left at the door.
Bluerag Magazine
Decemberr
2006 - January 2007
By Dennis Rozanski
When your southwest Louisiana band goes
by the name of "Racines"-or, translated from
the indigenous Cajun-French as "Roots"-you'd
better be able to put your music where your mouth is.
Because in the state where musical heritage runs deep,
making those roots sound good is particularly serious
business. Good thing, then, that the members of this newly-formed
collaboration are each pre-seasoned veterans who collectively
pool their talents here. And quite a stockpile of 'star
power' itis, with accordionist Steve Riley (Mamou Playboys),
fiddler Kevin Wimmer (Red Stick Ramblers), fiddler/bassist
Mitch Reed (Beausoliel), guitarist Chris Stafford (Feufollet),
and drummer Glenn Fields (Reds Stick Ramblers). Synergistically,
they demonstrate that the same material which once set
country frolics and parish dancehalls afire remains fully
combustible. So if such cornerstone names as Dennis McGee
and Sady Courville, Boozoo Chavis and Ambrose Sam, or
J.D. Miller don't ring with historic significance for
you, rest assured that their Cajun, zydeco, and swamp
tunes are respectively part of the Louisiana bedrock.
Cut into that bedrock are grooves of all sorts. Like the
paradoxically sweet one for "Drunkard's Waltz",
or the rubboard-scraped one whipping along "Johnny
Billie Goat." Swamping things up is "I Hear
You Knockin'", now a far more organic juggernaut
than the mentholated one that Lazy Lester rode for his
Excello original. And, in their hands, the blues either
can be pumped at a lazy-boy gait a la "Gone To The
Country", or worked up into quite the wild ride,
cresting to crescendo after jam-fueled crescendo through
Clifton Chenier's "My Baby She's Gone To Stay".
Yet when the big beat ultimately fades away, the day can
still be won on the simple, raw energy of bare fiddles
and boot stomps alone. Just try to resist the pull of
"Reel Perdu/Fruge's Reel.
