What better occasion than OffBeat’s 10th anniversary for this column to gratefully acknowledge the influence the magazine has had in bringing the many and diverse artists of southwest Louisiana to the attention of not only the rest of the U.S. but also the world? On the other hand, how would OffBeat fill its many column inches without those many and diverse artists? As the recent releases by Steve Riley and Geno Delafose and the albums reviewed below indicate, both the region’s past and its present contain many musical treasures worth mining. And with strong new releases from Native Sons and Van Broussard either in the stores or soon to be (more on those in upcoming months), the region’s musical future looks promising as well.

Rod Bernard: The Essential Collection (Jin)

Because this CD gathers for the first time on one domestic release 22 of his best recordings, Rod Bernard is one swamp-pop legend who no longer needs to be tracked down compilation by compilation. Even those who’ve already invested in Swamp Rock ‘n’ Roller, his 28-track 1994 collection on England’s Ace Records, will find this collection good for a dozen previously unanthologized cuts. The best news is that, unlike Swamp, Essential includes several of Bernard’s countrypolitan sides, with his ace performance of “Sometimes I Talk in My Sleep” a special treat. And because the word “essential” is in the title, “This Should Go On Forever” is the first song up.

Sonny Bourg and the Bayou Blues Band: Sonny Bourg and the Bayou Blues Band (MTE)

There are cover bands and then there are cover bands. Sonny Bourg and the Bayou Blues Band are among the latter, performing these 14 R&B classics with so much precision and verve that the idea of settling for reasonable facsimiles never seems to have crossed their minds. The three-man horn section provides the punch, Bourg provides the soul-deep gravel singing, and the Fats Domino, Wilson Pickett, “Frogman” Henry, Leadbelly, and Chuck Willis songbooks provide the material. Any serious collector already has half-a-dozen versions of these songs, but having them all in one place and so snappily done is nice.

Cajun String Bands: The 1930’s — Cajun Breakdown (Arhoolie)

Merely by unearthing four cuts from Leo Soileau, two from Clifford Breaux, one from the Dixie Ramblers, and 11 from J.B. Fuselier, this disc does music historians a big favor. By including seven cuts from the young Luderin Darbone and his equally young Hackberry Ramblers, it makes history live. The sound isn’t bad for being 60 years old. It reveals, for instance, not only which of these fiddlers knew how to swing but also which ones could play and sing in tune: Darbone’s sweet vocal on “Oh Josephine, My Josephine” is a special treat indeed.

Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band: Too Hot to Handle (Gulf Coast)

Recorded at Lafayette’s Grant Street Dancehall on a Thursday night last February, this live album establishes Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band as first-rate showmen and the Thursday-night Grant Street crowd as a dull bunch. The patrons treat Carrier’s request to sing along to “Cisco Kid” as if he were asking for their wallets. True, they may have just been tired of zydeco versions of “Cisco Kid,” but Carrier’s is pretty good. In fact, Carrier’s average-or-better versions of familiar numbers comprise over half the album. The Grateful Dead’s “Fire on the Mountain,” B.B. King’s “Rock Me Baby,” and Billy Preston’s “Will It Go Round in Circles” provide the band with the chance to show off its intricate funkiness. How did the crowd resist? Maybe it was just undermiced.

Frigg A-Go-Go: Frigg-A-Licious!!! (360 Twist!)

This three-song EP finds Lafayette’s answer to the Count Five, 13th Floor Elevators, and the Seeds continuing the knocker’s-up garage-a-thon that they started with last year’s full-length The Penetrating Sounds Of…. The departure of guitarist and ladies’ man Del Shaz has left the trash-guitar chores to Ronnie Ramada, whose lead-vocal ravings remain hearteningly out there. The result is both a leaner and meaner Frigg (especially on “The Beat of My Heart,” which in typically perverse fashion the band hides at the end of Side Two). Meanwhile, they continue to wield distortion like a secret weapon and employ “love” strictly as a euphemism, leaving such sleeve graphics as a lollilop-licking Betty Page and the inclusion of the Frigg address prefaced by “Stalk the band” to drive the sense of menace home.

Jean-Pierre and Zydeco Angels: Pump It Up! (Maison de Soul)

When Jean-Pierre Blanchard performs at Hamilton’s or some other club in or around Acadiana, the natural reverb of the live setting renders his French accent unnoticeable, leaving dancers free to concentrate on his accordion and the bouncy rhythms of his Zydeco Angels. On disc, though, Blanchard’s accent is just noticeable enough to guarantee that his accordion and rhythms won’t be the first things some dancers notice. Not that his accent is unpleasant. A genre as homogeneous as zydeco needs as many foreign touches as it can get. He sings all right too. When he relaxes (“I Want to Love You So Bad”), he could pass for Creole. Only on “Foxy Girl” does he seem so culturally out of it that not even the Zydeco Angels can close the loop.

Les Amis de la Louisianne: Fier d’ etre Cajun (Swallow)

Don Fontenot may not know it, but his 12-bar “Mon Coeur Est Juste Pour Toi” copies Autry Inman’s 12-bar “I Don’t Believe You’ve Met My Baby” note for note, and if he doesn’t think so, he can buy Alison Krauss’s Now That I’ve Found You and check the similarities himself. But at least he’s copying — and covering — good songs: Iry Lejeune’s “Don’t Get Married,” Joe Bonsall’s “Grand Prairie Waltz,” and especially Dewey Balfa’s “Mardi Gras Song,” as exemplary a missing link between post-migration Cajun music and pre-migration Acadian music as exists anywhere.

Moe-D: Moe-D (Swallow)

Any band whose members devote liner space to “tank[ing]” their “wives for their support, not so moral sometimes” knows a thing or two about having fun, as does any band that includes its best song twice. Called “Gumbodia” the first time and “The Gumbo Song” the second, it takes the Meters “They All Ask’d for You,” replaces the zoological details with culinary ones, and in general raises the fun bar of Cajun-food songs so high that the disc-closing run-through of “Jambalaya” feels anticlimactic. “Uncle Adam” and D.L. Menard’s “The Back Door,” however, feel fine, and Terry Beard’s “Bottom of the Glass” maintains its weepy, honky-tonk mood for three of its five minutes. Further enlivening the proceedings are the fiddler-accordionist Abe Manual, Jr., who sings like a Cajun Grandpa Jones; the fiddler-accordionist Cedrick Hebert, who sings like a bullfrog with soul; the fiddle, accordion, and guitar, which constitute a joyful racket; and the mysterious Moe-D member who at the 2:50-mark of “When I Was Poor” says, apropos of nothing in particular, “Bite me.”

Randy and the Rockets: A Blast from the Past: The Essential Collection (Jin)

Because they tended toward prom-band facelessness, especially when covering other people’s hits, Randy David and his various Rockets amassed a body of swamp-pop better experienced in smaller bites than this 22-track smorgasbord. Still, they had their moments, as those listeners patient enough to find them will discover.

The Rough Guide to Cajun and Zydeco (World Music Network)

Phil Stanton licensed five of these songs from Arhoolie and 14 from Rounder, and although the 66 minutes he’s come up with are O.K., one wonders what he might’ve come up with if only he’d included some local-label cuts. Definitive this isn’t, but for not-definitive it’s not bad — two songs from BeauSoleil (four if you count the Michael and David Doucet solo tracks), two from Buckwheat Zydeco, and one apiece from practically everyone who is or ever has been anyone in Cajun and zydeco. But what’s missing amidst the breadth is depth and focus. Dabblers who don’t know any better will think that Bruce Daigrepont (whose “Disco Et Fais Do-Do” is the only must-hear on this disc) is the best musician ever to emerge from southwest Louisiana.

Leo Thomas and His Louisiana Zydeco Band Featuring Leeroy Thomas: Leo Thomas Is a Sunama-Gun (Bad Weather)

What are the odds that the best-titled zydeco album ever by the best-named zydeco ensemble ever would also contain the best-sounding zydeco music ever? Well, too long as it turns out, but not by nearly as much as this ensemble’s splinters-and-all approach would suggest. From the howls and shrieks to the non sequiturs and plagiarism (a “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” that sounds like Dylan’s but isn’t, a song that begins “I’ve got dreams to remember” that isn’t Otis Redding’s) to the semi-articulate vocals and loose-cannon sax, these 14 ramshackle songs sound as if they’d fall apart in a second if not for the Thomases’ sheer force of will. Not the best zydeco ever, but definitely the starkest and wildest since Thomas’s previous entry in the best-named-zydeco-album sweepstakes: I’m Going Blind.