"Went Out Last Night" (Keith Frank)

I was doing the touristy thing, walking through the French Market in New Orleans many years ago.  There was this one market stall where this little lady was selling everything under the sun (spice mixes, t-shirts, jujus, hot sauces, bumper stickers, voodoo dolls, etc), and she had this infectious party song, with this guy singing about going clubbing, meeting girls, and falling in love, just blasting from a little boombox behind her cash register.  It wasn't quite traditional Cajun music, even though it featured accordion and washboard percussion.  And it had too much R&B and soul to be straight up Zydeco.

I asked her who the artist was, and she handed me a CD called Rockin' Zydeco Party—a compilation of music from a regional label called Maison de Soul, based in Ville Platte, LA.  She pointed to track #5: "Went Out Last Night" by artist Keith Frank.

"Keith Frank.  That's my jam."

I wore out the batteries on my Discman (if that gives you any idea of how long ago this was) listening to this song, over and over, on the plane ride back to North Carolina.
It is one helluva feel-good jam.

Keith Frank is part of the movement known as "nouveau Zydeco."  The Soileau, LA-born singer/accordion player made a name for himself back in the 90s by taking the traditional Zydeco of artists like Clifton Chenier and Buckwheat Zydeco and mixing it with elements of James Brown- and Meters-influenced funk and even hip-hop, bringing the music of rural Acadiana into the city.  Traditionalists (including fans of his Zydeco musician father, Preston Frank) balked at the mix of old and new.  Nevertheless, it introduced Zydeco to a whole new generation.

And anytime a musical tradition can be kept alive, that's a good thing in my book.