Up From the Swamp
Unheralded Louisiana singer-songwriter Joe Barry releases new disc, painstakingly completed despite his failing health
Most people’s knowledge of Louisiana music is limited to the piano professors and funky street beats of New Orleans or to Cajun and zydeco styles. Often overlooked is swamp pop, a mix of R&B, rock ’n’ roll, Cajun music and Louisiana soul that ruled gulf-state dance floors during the late ’50s and ’60s. Along with The Boogie Kings, Cookie & The Cupcakes and Charles Mann, singer-songwriter Joe Barry, from Cut Off, La., was a decisive force in swamp pop. His biggest hit, a version of Ted Daffan’s “I’m a Fool to Care,” reached No. 24 on the Billboard pop chart in 1961 and is still a regional standard. Now 64 and in failing health, Barry recently completed Been Down That Muddy Road, a hard-wrought recording of previously unreleased and mostly original material.
Time crawls on the oil-stained bayous of Louisiana’s south coast—there’s good reason Barry’s hometown is called “Cut Off”—and Been Down That Muddy Road retains the sound of formative swamp pop. The 6/8 stroll and swaggering horns of “Every Breath You Take,” the CD’s opening track, backdates The Police hit 25 years. (A French version appears later on the record.) Weathering makes Barry’s Cajun-inflected voice, craggy from years of abuse, more soulful than ever. His studio backing band, The Blue-Eyed Soul Revue, play like they’re stuck in time, and that’s a good thing, even if some of the guitar solos are stuck in the ’80s instead of the ’60s.
Despite its vintage sound, Been Down That Muddy Road owes its existence to modern digital recording technology. When the project began three years ago, Barry’s physical condition had deteriorated such that performing, let alone traveling to a recording studio, was nearly impossible. Basic tracks were cut in Houma, La., and then taken to the singer’s home—and, in some cases, to his hospital room—via an Appletracks I portable recorder. Engineer and bandleader Pershing Wells pieced together the vocal takes—a painstaking process, considering that Barry suffers from a myriad of ailments, including chronic asthma, bronchitis and emphysema, and could sing for only 30 seconds or so at a time.
In his heyday, Barry was compared to Fats Domino and Ray Charles; like those two, his cool delivery and unhurried groove can still make almost any record sound like a jukebox hit. Unfortunately, unlike Domino and Charles, Barry no longer appears bulletproof. Though one is deserved, Been Down That Muddy Road is no mere tribute to an aging voice of swamp pop, but rather a courageous work that holds its own among the regional musical style’s classics.
—Paul Griffith
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