Swamp Pop Music – In Search Of The Rhythm

Music has been a prime voice of expressing love and longing, but no other than swamp pop

music does it better. It is a form of music developed in the southern region of Louisiana by

Cajun musicians during the 1950s and 1960s. It is characterized by highly emotional,

lovelorn lyrics, strong rhythm and blues backbeat. No one can forget the distinct intense

sometimes over the top emotion with which the swamp pop songs, rocking ballads of love

and longing were played by the musicians. Although the art seems to have lost in time,

there are some stores and radio stations dedicated to swamp, playing the latest and the

greatest hits of this high intensity music genre.

Although swamp music saw many national hits in the 1950s and 1960s, today this music

form is almost forgotten. Some of the veteran artists still play for select group of fans in

some of the clubs in and around New Orleans but not for long. Younger musicians aren’t

producing enough forcing us to heavily rely on oldies music stores and few select internet

only radio stations. It’s sad that such energetic and lively music form is moving towards

extinction.

There are some online oldies music stores selling authentic vinyl records of greatest hits

of swamp music songs like the Classic Tunes Music store. Most of the radio stations are also

located in the southern Louisiana. The online stores offer relatively wider variety of swamp

albums to choose from with some of the greatest national hits like Jimmy Clanton's "Just A

Dream" (1958), Warren Storm's "Prisoner's Song" (1958) and many more. Some of the

stores even offer digitalized CDs of different hits making it possible to play these songs on

modern music players. But if you want to see a live performance you will need to visit one

of the bars or restaurants in New Orleans where swamp pop music artists perform live.

Although the genre began a slow decline many devoted fans still go to various swamp pop

music festivals held in southeast part of Texas and south Louisiana as well as nightclubs

where artists play regularly. I personally am a great fan of this genre and continuously try

to explore new resources to find rare swamp songs and not just the hits. I have been fairly

successful in my conquest whenever I could find an online store like Classic Tunes Music.