Anthology

Voice of the Wetlands All Stars is a musical collective dedicated to preserving the disappearing wetlands of southern Louisiana.

Grammy nominee Tab Benoit has assembled a stellar ensemble of fellow New Orleans musicians (including N.O. Legends, The Meters and Neville Brothers, Cyril Neville, fellow roots-man Anders Osborne, fiddler Waylon Thibodeaux, influential New Orleans drummer Johnny Vidacovich, harmonica/accordion player Jumpin’ Johnny Sansone, and New Orleans Mardi Gras Indian, Big Chief Monk Boudreaux to forge a musical plea for the fragile eco-system that is the increasingly depleted wetlands surrounding their hometown.

In the wake of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina, the chorus of the group’s otherwise savory, funk-charged opening song “Bayou Breeze”–“Don’t let the water wash us away”–now seems like a haunting, unheeded warning recorded eight months before disaster struck.

Armed with songs like, “We Ain’t Gonna Lose No More (Without a Fight),” they are taking to task an administration that’s ignored the urgent needs of their homeland in favor of misadventure in Iraq. As well as songs like “Louisiana Sunshine” that continue to focus largely on environmental concerns that grow more urgent with every tropical storm that gathers in the Gulf, it’s also a show that is rife with New Orleans’ cross-cultural musical joie de vivre, as witnessed by Benoit and Osborne’s Cajun-seasoned “We Make a Good Gumbo” and the slinky African rhythms of Monk Boudreaux’s “Me Donkey Want Water.”

The band’s music sounds like Louisiana Rock, Funk, Soul, and Cajun classics that have risen from years of music history and the environment that the music comes from.