Electric guitar slinger and blues vocalist Selwyn Cooper has done much more than simply pay his dues – he has banked away the kind of musical experience few other blues musicians can match. Just for starters, he’s played in the back-up bands of three of the greatest musicians to emerge from the southwest Louisiana Gulf Coast: Zydeco King Clifton Chenier, Zydeco World Ambassador Buckwheat Zydeco, and Zydeco Heir Apparent Rockin’ Dopsie.

In the process of touring nationally and internationally, he’s also worn out three passports, played on two Grammy-winning CDs, and can be heard on a pair of movie soundtracks (The Big Easy, with Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin, and Delta Heat with Mickey Rourke). He’s opened so many shows for blues master B.B. King, he says, that he can’t count them all.

Having previously recorded a Zydeco-oriented CD, Cooper decided this time out to stick strictly with the blues, but blues played with a decidedly Louisiana flavor, hence the title Louisiana Swamp Blues.

These are blues with a big, funky sound, played with lost of passion and plenty of organ and harmonica wailing, hard-driving drums, soulful vocals, and, of course, stinging guitar solos.

Playing mainly self-composed numbers, this consummate bluesman also pays tribute to key influences, such as Elmore James (“The Sky Is Crying”), B.B. King (“Rock Me, Baby”), Professor Longhair (“Mardi Gras in New Orleans,” which is played in a double-time rhythm), and J.J. Cale (“Crazy Mama,” which is done as a rocking boogie). The real standout here, though, is “Mathilda,” a Louisiana swamp blues anthem played in a swaying rhythm with gorgeous two-part-harmony vocals.

Eloquent, hard driving, and deeply soulful, this is classic Louisiana swamp blues played exactly the way it was meant to be heard!