Although in some respects
Lay Your Burden Down is exactly the kind of record one would expect from
Buckwheat Zydeco (
Stanley "Buckwheat" Dural, Jr.) at this point -- upbeat
zydeco dance numbers -- it also has some new and interesting wrinkles, and it's obvious that
Dural is reaching for more on this wonderful outing. First, he has reunited with producer
Steve Berlin, who produced
Dural's strong 1994 album
Five Card Stud. And
Dural has chosen the songs for this set carefully, bringing in five new original compositions and filling things out with inspired covers of
Memphis Minnie's
"When the Levee Breaks," Bruce Springsteen's little-known
"Back in Your Arms," Gov't Mule's
"Lay Your Burden Down," Captain Beefheart's
"Too Much Time," and
Jimmy Cliff's
"Let Your Yeah Be Yeah," all of which are re-imagined brilliantly. Yeah, there is still plenty of
zydeco accordion here, and this is still very much a
zydeco record, but it reaches further and deeper toward being a larger musical statement, and
Lay Your Burden Down ends up being
Dural's most accomplished and mature album yet, moving from start to finish like everything belongs together. Nothing misses its mark, and several tracks do so much more than that, including the stomping take on
"Levee" that opens this set, the breezy and bouncy
reggae-
zydeco hybrid version of
"Let Your Yeah Be Yeah," (which somehow manages to sound even more upbeat than
Cliff's original -- which was pretty upbeat already), and the startling and beautiful
"Too Much Time," which redirects
Beefheart's original from the 1972 album
Clear Spot into a gorgeous, emotionally fulfilling ballad.
Buckwheat Zydeco has always been fun, a
zydeco dance band guaranteed to get your feet moving, and
Dural's live shows are sweaty, funky dance-a-thons, but with
Lay Your Burden Down, he has given us something else again, an album that works both at the dance party and still rings clear the next day when maybe it's time to dig deeper and do a little thinking. It's the best kind of musical synthesis. ~ Steve Leggett
