Dr. John – Crawfish Soiree (CD)

Mac Rebennack spent decades carrying the deepest traditions of New Orleans music to audiences who might never set foot on Bourbon Street, and *Crawfish Soiree* finds him deep in that gumbo, drawing on the city's rich Creole and Mardi Gras Indian heritage. It's a reminder that before the neon and the tourist traps, New Orleans had a sound that was genuinely ancient, syncretic, and irreplaceable, and nobody understood that better than the Night Tripper himself.