Grand Isle

Absorb, conquer, and rock. Louisiana's Francophone communities have faced down exile and persecution, natural and manmade disaster, by remaining resolutely creative. Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys know this creativity intimately; what fiddler and co-leader David Greely eloquently calls "survivor joy." It has echoed for centuries in everything from aching solo ballads to swamp pop blasts and funkified two-steps. Their latest album, Grand Isle (self-release; February 22, 2011) calls on this joy and shows it's defiant, resilient forms in all their glory, with help from producer, friend, and swamp-n-roll legend CC Adcock. They toss aside roots-music formulas to channel the energy of an entire community of multi-ethnic, hard-hitting eccentrics and activists, from a mad musical inventor of New Orleans to a pensive professor-lyricist, from a vintage recording guru to a bold local staging an oil spill photo exhibit in her dining room.