Swamp Blues

Swamp blues is the laid-back electric blues of southern Louisiana, cut mostly in the 1950s and 1960s at *J.D. Miller*'s Crowley studio for #Excello Records#: slow-burning shuffles, tremolo-soaked guitar, wheezing harmonica and vocals delivered in a laconic half-spoken drawl, all drenched in the studio's cavernous echo. Where Chicago blues shouted, the swamp men — *Slim Harpo*, *Lightnin' Slim*, *Lazy Lester*, *Lonesome Sundown* — smoldered, stretching a handful of chords across hypnotic vamps. Its records crossed to Britain on import 45s and fed the 1960s blues boom, and its humid, unhurried menace remains instantly recognizable.