Robert Fried

The best of his New Orleans recordings for the label’s two records recorded in 1994 Swamp Boogie (studio) and 1998 Sing Sang Sung (live) on one CD. It starts off with Jr. Walker & The Allstars classic “Cleo’s Back” which was featured in a big Tom Hanks’ Hollywood soundtrack for Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and track two “Mean Little Woman” featured in HBO’s Treme. Little Freddie, born Fread Eugene Martin, probably made himself and the label some nice sync license pocket change on those two placements and even some performance royalties on the latter which he also wrote. Always good to see a label get an artist paid. Beyond the first two tracks this album makes a lot of sense. Pairing down the two albums into one may seem strange especially when a CD could easily contain both holding up to 80 minutes. But here it’s the quality of the program that showcases the many styles Freddie has distilled into his very own brew. A get the party started nice variety of sounds and tempos mixing instrumentals with vocals without overdoing it.