Louisiana grooves, big soul vocals, get-to-the-monkey-nerve songwriting, killer production and a live bonus track featuring Sonny Landreth. 'Nuff said.

11 MP3 Songs
BLUES: Funky Blues, POP: Piano



Details:
River of Madness, originally released on D'Ville Records in 1994, is Steve Conn's long out-of-print "Louisiana" album. It features several songs that have become minor classics, like "Mardi Gras Morning" and "The One and Only Truth."

It has been remastered by the great Jim DeMain in Nashville and sounds great. It also includes a bonus track, a smoking version of "I've Got Your Dog," recorded live in Louisiana with his old friend Sonny Landreth on guitar.

Allen Howie said it better than we could in his review of the original album for the Louisville Music News in 1996. We'll let him take it from here:
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Deft Musical Cross-Pollination

By Allen Howie

While hanging out in the hospital with our new daughter last August, my wife and I couldn't help reflecting on how much our lives had changed from the time, just a year before, when we had been unwinding in New Orleans. Shortly thereafter, the mail brought a copy of Steve Conn's new release, River of Madness, and for the ensuing forty-two minutes, I found myself back on the banks of the Mississippi, catching my breath in the heart of the French Quarter.

Although the disc is shot through with Cajun rhythms, the songs display a depth and breadth not often found on "regional" releases. This may be due in part to the presence of guitarist Sonny Landreth mixing it up on electric and acoustic, as well as guest vocals on two numbers by Tommy Malone and John Magnie of critical favorites the subdudes.

But the lion's share of the credit rests with Conn himself. With a warm, wonderful voice that recalls Paul Brady and Art Neville, and a deft instrumental touch on organ, accordion and keyboards, Conn brings solid musicianship to bear on the ten numbers included here. He also wrote all of the material, weaving catchy melodies with intoxicating rhythms in the same spirit of musical cross-pollination that made the Delta a fertile musical breeding ground.

Awash in Conn's glowing production (this guy really does it all), the record leans from the nimble piano of "Mardi Gras Morning" to the sweetly soulful "Midnight on the Delta," and from the moody title track to the zydeco tilt of "Good Intentions." But while River of Madness is loaded with great dance tunes, its heart is in the slower numbers, particularly "Morning Light" and the melancholy Civil War lament, "In An Angel's Arms." The latter track alone is worth the price of admission, its sad elegance providing a beautiful coda to a finely-crafted album.
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"Conn will kidnap you to a midnight mass on the Mississippi Delta."
* Rolling Stone, Germany

"A bit like Mose Allison melded with a New Orleans rhythmic sensibility."
* Los Angeles Times