While Cajun and zydeco usually gets the most attention, there’s a special brand of music that evolved along the Gulf Coast of southeast Texas and on the prairies of southwestern Louisiana called “swamp pop” and it remains a favorite genre for legions of regional music fans, not to mention music lovers all around the world.

What makes “swamp pop” work? Authenticity. Really good “swamp pop” makes you an instant believer in the ability of white musicians to express their own kind of soulfulness. For example? Janis Joplin, raised in Port Arthur on the Texas Gulf Coast, not far from the Louisiana state line.

Simply put, swamp pop combines early R&B formats with a mainstream sensibility and a strong blues feeling. But what makes this music unusual is that most swamp pop musicians, and a large part of the music’s audience, are white, which makes “swamp pop” and “blue-eyed soul” something like kissin’ cousins.

G.G. Shinn is one those southeast Louisiana musicians famous among fans of “swamp pop” but mostly unheard of by the majority of music fans.

Lead vocalist on the landmark 1965 recording debut of The Fabulous Boogie Kings, who have since become a fixture on the “swamp pop” scene, G.G.’s dramatic and accomplished “blue-eyed soul” stylings will make an instant believer of anyone who loves early rock’n’roll, big-band R&B arrangements, and hard-driving blues.

You Can’t Keep a Good Man Down is filled with more than its fair share of hip-swiveling rockers, boogie-on-down shuffles, and plaintive, heart-breaking ballads. As a showcase for the range of G.G.’s talent, one listen will have you convinced, along with Boogie Kings leader Ned Theall, that “G.G. Shinn will long be remembered as one of the finest entertainers southeast Louisiana has ever produced.”