Various Artists - The Early Years: 1949-62

The first live field recordings made of Zydeco music in the early 1960s by Chris Strachwitz, at house parties & beer joints in Houston and southwest Louisiana. Fueled with lively accordion riffs and snappy washboard rhythms that make your feet want to move, zydeco's recent flirtations with pop music have opened up a whole new audience and brand new possibilities for its practitioners.Sonically speaking, all 19 tracks are raw and rough around the edges. But that's understandable when you consider the earliest track, `Bon Ton Roulet,' by Clarence Garlow, dates back to 1949, and that most of the tracks are 1961 and 1962. But then again, almost every tune included on the disc provides an authentic account of zydeco's beginnings, from `Allons a Lafayette' (McZiel & Gernger) to `They Call Me Good Rockin'' (Herbert Sam).