Gatemouth Brown has always had a soft spot for songs that breathe the air of his native Southwest. On Back to Bogalusa, he's put together an entire album of them, drawing on the work of songwriters like Bobby Charles ("It All Comes Back," "Why Are People Like That"), Delbert McClinton ("Lie No Better"), and Hoyt Garrick ("Folks Back Home," "Louisian'"). Cajun echoes drift across the album's landscape--Zachary Richard's accordion, Brown's fiddling in "Breaux Bridge Rag"--and Sonny Landreth puts the raccoons to flight with thunderous slide guitar on Lowell George's "Dixie Chicken" and a couple of other numbers. Some of the songs are either too sentimental or too oblique to suit Brown's plain approach and grandfatherly voice, but his old blues heart beats strongly on Don Nix's "Same Old Blues," and he struts his stuff like a... well, like a Dixie chicken in the defiantly boastful "Bogalusa Boogie Man." --Tony Russell
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