Mama I'll Be Long Gone: The Complete Recordings of

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Resonating from deep in the Louisiana bayous and Cajun backwoods, the legendary music of AmedeArdoin is one of the most profound influences on the development of the Cajun music known as zydeco.Ardoin, a black Creole musician of indeterminate origin, made a grand total of thirty-four recordings before slipping back into the deep black Louisiana night from whence he came. Legend has it that some years after these recordings were made, Ardoin was attacked in a racially-motivated fight (presumably for wiping his face with a white woman's handkerchief), beaten, suffered major brain damage and died in an insane asylum in 1941, but as with all great music legends, the line between truth and fiction has long been whittled away by time, leaving only the music as testament.

"Mama, I'll Be Long Gone" collects all thirty-four known tracks by Ardoin on two discs, including the six tracks he recorded for Columbia Records with white fiddler Dennis McGee in New Orleans on December 9,...Read more

A lot of Cajun festivals feature bands playing music that screams, "Laissez les bons temps rouler!" Sparse dance floors, too much denim and pancake make-up, folks with one too many loaded fruit punches in them, trying a little too hard. Clifton Chenier and Buckwheat Zydeco come to mind. Awesome musicians to be sure, but certainly they could be described as caricatures of themselves; and certainly they know what they offer is like a 5th generation mix tape of the real deal. Chris King has done it again: the man that brought us Screamin` and Hollerin` the Blues and People Take Warning has painstakingly compiled a definitive collection of the work of the real deal--Amede Ardoin, the godfather of Cajun and Creole music.

In Mama, I'll Be Long Gone, King brings us the complete recordings of Ardoin, replete with the cracks and pops from the `78s he used as the source. King is one of the foremost restorative engineers of historical recordings, and with the Ardoin set, he proves...Read more

As one peruses the supplemental material inside Mama I'll Be Long Gone: The Complete Recordings and of Amede Ardoin 1929 - 1934, the story emerges of how this musician and his influence on Cajun and Zydeco music represents a lost relic in the evolution of both of those styles. The recordings are crisp and clean and lack a lot of the noise associated with some historical releases, yet do not lose that classic 78-record sound. Even if one has heard a great deal of this type of music, these songs have a very individual flavor to them that marks a true artist, a very pleasing combination of accordion and vocals with accompaniment on many tracks by fiddler Dennis McGee. This collection is a must-have for anyone who enjoys historical recordings, music's roots, or Cajun and Zydeco music.