The Wild Tchoupitoulas

The WILD TCHOUPITOULAS

Mango

For their only album, the Mardi Gras Indian tribe Wild Tchoupitoulas teamed with the Meters and the Neville Brothers to concoct a primitively funky, second-line-heavy blast of Crescent City revelry. George "Big Chief Jolly" Landry fronts the group, which dives into such New Orleans staples as "Hey Pocky Way," "Brother John" and "Here Dey Come." The album somehow blends soulful vocals and expert musicianship with the flavor of a field recording. Essential.

This article appears in Apr 5-11, 2006.

Eric Snider is the dean of Bay area music critics. He started in the early 1980s as one of the founding members of Music magazine, a free bi-monthly. He was the pop music critic for the then-St. Petersburg...