Unlike a lot of commercially-minded music imprints, Field Recorder’s Collective is happily run on a shoestring by a bunch of altruistic, idealistic-minded music lovers who would rather preserve something for public archive than make a clump of change. Since its inception in 2003, the collective spearheaded by Ray Alden has released an average of ten recordings each year consisting primarily of Appalachian old-time musicians, the majority of whom have never recorded commercially. This year is a little different with the label’s first release of two Cajun offerings, suggesting that Alden and crew recognize the need to preserve other facets of American roots music besides what comes deep from the holler.

The Dennis McGee/Sady Courville recording re-presents the long lost album originally released in ’72 on the Morning Star label. The octogenarian McGee and his 68-year-old brother-in-law Courville had just played the National Folk Festival when they stopped by renowned record collector Joe Bussard’s to make their first recording since 1929 and five years before their La Vielle Musique Acadienne LP on Swallow Records. Thanks to the bulldoggedness of Maryland Cajun music enthusiast (and OffBeat subscriber) Jack Bond, the LP’s original dozen tracks are once again available, only this time with an additional 16 tracks culled from the mammoth four-hour-plus session.

To the uninitiated, hearing two old-time fiddlers without a guitar accompanist outlining the chord structure may seem raw and somewhat unnerving. At the same time, the proceedings can be organically soulful, seeding a blossoming, enchanted beauty all its own, if given enough devoted listening time. The hoop-and-hollering McGee wends his way through pristine melodies, lilting waltzes and relentless, driving bowing while Courville provides unfaltering rhythmic support that’s also known as basing or seconding. Though many of these McGee staples are now frequently heard in Southwest Louisiana with full dance band arrangements, it’s conceivable that some of this disc’s obscurer titles (“Two-Step de Marais Buller,” “Jean Bouque Breakdown”) could flourish in new incarnations.

Handpicked from various performances that Dewey Balfa, his family and friends made at Delaware’s Brandywine Festival in 1977 and 1983, the Balfa offering captures what the Cajun music ambassador was like in a live setting. Besides the superbly rendered music, what’s also interesting are the notables Balfa brought with him in those two years—brother/guitarist Rodney, fiddler Dick Richard, accordionist Nonc Allie Young, nephew/fiddler Tony Balfa and accordionist Robert Jardell. Contrary to the popular dance hall style of then and today, Balfa preferred to keep his music more acoustic, like his family would have played, with less reliance on the accordion and an amplified rhythm section. But Balfa also realized the benefit of mixing up a set, whether it was a commanding rendition of “Perrodin Two-Step,” a French folk song “J’ai Vu Le Loup et La Renard et la Bellard” or something more in the dance hall vein like “Acadian Two-Step.” There’s even something that jam band aficionados could appreciate, the 7:54 version of “Pine Grove Blues” that could easily be titled “Pine Groove Blues.” Here, with steel guitarist Winnie Winston, there are scads of improvised swapping of call-and-response passages that can only come from the deepest of inspiration.