Ace spent a good chunk of 2013 boppin', bouncin', and rockin' on the bayou, and their autumn release, Boppin' by the Bayou: More Dynamite, is one of the liveliest of their excavations of the vaults of Louisiana music moguls Eddie Shuler, Charles "Dago" Redlich, J.D. Miller, and Carol Rachou. Once again, this is hardly reliant on recognizable names. There is the New Orleans giant Bobby Charles, rocking & rolling with the previously unreleased "Teenagers," but that's about it. The rest of this is jumping New Orleans R&B and rock & roll recorded during the late '50s and early '60s but sitting unreleased until this 2013 collection.
28 slices of down’n’dirty blues from the Deep South – including eight previously unheard tracks and takes. The “By The Bayou” series leaps to Volume 18 with a return to the blues of South Louisiana, bringing you rare or previously unissued tracks from stars of the genre such as Lightnin’ Slim, Lazy Lester and Slim Harpo, plus a host of little-known or completely unknown performers. We also have two artists who you would never think performed in the downhome style – Barbara Lynn and Cookie (aka Huey Thierry) – but who sound right at home, with an unknown harmonica player setting the tone on Barbara’s track whilst Cupcakes guitarist Marshall Laday supports Cookie with some mean blues pickin’. In fact there are several tracks here that will have air-guitar virtuosos reaching for their imaginary axes.
During the final part of their career, the Stanley Brothers did most of their recording for the King label, laying down almost 200 sides for the company between 1958 and 1965. All of those tracks are available in box set form should you want them, but the ordinary fan will be satisfied with more selective samplers such as this one, which has a couple dozen cuts originally released in 1961-1966. The Stanley Brothers were a consistent enough act that the songs picked for best-of comps are pretty much up to the taste of the compiler, but this does a fine job both in the quality and the variety of the material presented. In addition to plenty of originals, there are also interpretations of songs by A.P. Carter, Alton Delmore, and traditional items.