The Sound of The Swamp

The History Channel's "Swamp People" now has its own companion album.

Reality television has made stars of hoarders, little people, bounty hunters, hair eaters, and gypsies; sooner or later, Louisianans had to enter the fray. Not city folk. Evidently real people live is smaller towns, the country, the suburbs if they're truly cosmopolitan, and that (and state tax incentives) have led to such programs as Bayou Billionaires, My Big Redneck Vacation, Cajun Pawn Stars, Swamp Pawn, Sons of Guns, Ragin' Cajuns, and the two biggest successes, Duck Dynasty and Swamp People. Swamp People is in its fourth season on the History Channel, and it recently released its own companion CD "inspired by the television series," according to the cover - not a soundtrack since music on the show is mood-setting instrumental music, often with a guitar or harmonica.

The album was compiled by Scott Billington, who's had a long-standing relationship with Louisiana. In his role as Vice President of A&R for Rounder Records, he has been recording and releasing Louisiana music since the mid-1970s, and he now lives in New Orleans part-time. As such, it was a labor of love to pull together songs by Bobby Charles, Hank Williams, and D.L. Menard. "It's a great soundtrack to Louisiana life," he says. 

According to Billington, "It's a challenge in the record business to get people to hear things that they haven't heard before. The synchronicity with the Swamp People brand I hope enables us to get some really good music out in front of people who otherwise wouldn't have an opportunity to hear it. Some of those songs are iconic and people have heard them over the years, but have they heard Chris Ardoin? Have they heard Johnny Sansone? Maybe they haven't heard Zachary Richard or The Neville Brothers. It's a big audience out there that might not be hip to Louisiana roots music."

The sole new track on the album is the title track "Swamp People" by Steel Bill, who wrote the show's theme song. Billington cut it with a band that included Cranston Clements, Gina Forsyth, and Doug Belote, and while he flirted with the idea of having someone else sing the vocal, he warmed to the idea of Steel Bill - whose real name is Billy Joe Tharpe - singing it. "It's a little bit of a country rap kind of thing," Billington says. "He's actually more of a hip-hop artist than anything else."

Billington was brought to the project by the album's Executive Producer, Pete Elkins. She is the entertainment manager for Swamp People stars Troy Landry and the Landry family, and her years in the A&R department at Warner Brothers Records led her to think of the companion CD. She first took the idea to another Warners A&R alum, Bill Bentley, now at Vanguard Records. He didn't think Vanguard had the right catalogue for the project and recommended that Elkins take it to Billington and Rounder instead.

Elkins also had to convince the A&E Network and the History Channel that the companion album was a good idea. They weren't sure that people would buy the music, and as far as anyone could tell, it was unprecedented. No one involved could think of an album that accompanied an unscripted television show. Network executives came around though, Elkins says. "They have been outstanding every step of the way." Ads for the CD now run on the show and on the A&E website.

"[The album] keeps fans connected on the days that the show isn't on," she says. "Troy really loves the music. It's music that he listens to on a regular basis."

The show is most popular with males between 18 and 52, but when the Landrys do public appearances, Elkins sees girls and women, all of whom are fascinated at some level with Cajun culture, which further validates the project in her mind. "It's a great opportunity to really bring forward the culture in its entirety," she says. "Once you start tossing about Cajun, Cajun lifestyle, Cajun food, the next step is Cajun music because it's what the culture rests on." 

 Billington concedes that some may be squeamish about a show about killing alligators, but he appreciates Swamp People. "It's very respectful of the culture," he says. "There's no attempt to make a caricature of it. I think it's interesting that the popular imagination keeps coming back to the Louisiana swamp as a place to celebrate life and looking at that way of life as something that connects the people who live there to something substantial."