Man in a louisiana swamp song mac#

Is this where it all started? ‘Suzy Q’ is the song often held up as being the first Swamp Rock single.

Pull on your wellies, douse yourself in DDT and watch out for Alligators – we’re heading for the swamp…. There is a romance about a lot of Swamp Rock that is, perhaps, something of a hangover from Swamp Pop and a little at odds with the harsher realities of the songs of purer Cajun and Zydeco artists – life in the bayou is not all about fishing for catfish and drinking moonshine whisky – but the better songs still have quite a dark edge and a number of the acts associated with Swamp Rock incorporated political and social commentary into their songs, reflecting the dissatisfaction of the youth of the time with the American establishment and often showing an early appreciation for preserving the swampland environment.

John Fogerty, through Creedence Clearwater Revival and, later, as a solo artist, built a distinct sound and a very successful musical career on an association with Swamp Rock, despite hailing from Riverside County in California, just over 2,000 miles from the Louisiana swamplands! Unlike Cajun, Zydeco and Swamp Pop, you didn’t need to have your roots in the Louisiana swamplands to be accepted in Swamp Rock circles and many of the more well-known bands associated with the genre had never been within a few hundred miles of Bayou country. John and Tony Joe White hailed from Cajun country.

Man in a louisiana swamp song mac#

There was also a healthier infusion of country blues than had been incorporated in the previous genres – but you can still hear the Cajun rhythms, along with the influence of New Orleans R&B, in many of the best Swamp Rock songs and some major Swamp Rock artists, like Mac Rebennack/Dr. Swamp Rock owes less to Louisiana and South East Texas than its predecessors because wider influences were coming into play apart from the British Beat Boom the most notable of the local influences was the soul music coming out of places like Memphis and Georgia. Swamp Rock started to be identified as a musical trend in the late 1960s and early 70s, as the Swamp Pop of the 50s became influenced by the harder, guitar-driven sound of the ‘British Invasion’ of the States, started by the Beatles. In my recent little trawl through the Americana music of Louisiana we’ve had Cajun, Zydeco and Swamp Pop so, finally, we come to a close cousin, Swamp Rock.