Personnel: Beau Jocque (vocals, accordion); Steve "Skeeta" Charlot (vocals, drums, rubboard); Russell "Sly" Dorion (guitar, background vocals); Michael Lockett (Hammond B-3 organ, keyboards, background vocals); Chuck Bush (6-string bass, background vocals); Eric Minix (drums, rubboard).
Recorded at Ultrasonic Studios, New Orleans, Louisiana in March 1998.
The mission of the late South Louisiana dancehall great Beau Jocque was to pull zydeco burbling and rocking into a contemporary context. Judging from the slick, swampy grooves contained on CHECK IT OUT, LOCK IT IN, CRANK IT UP!, his mission was a success. Everything from the cartoon cover, which features Beau Jocque as an accordion-playing, turbo-charged superhero, to the two postmodern remixes of "Slide and Dip It" (the space-age "Party Dip Mix" of the tune is the album's high point), indicates that this is not your average zydeco outing.
Accordions and washboards are still the locus around which the band's chaotic world whirls, and the stylistic vocabulary is still predominantly New Orleans R&B. However, the Highrollers throw keyboards and electronics into the mix and kick up the loose, funky bass to create a fresh, booty-moving take on the genre's formula. Throughout the album, from driving rave-ups like "She Wants to Sell My Monkey" to the wah-wah psychedelic blues of "Going to the Country," it's Beau Jocque's dexterity on the squeezebox and his hulking, Howlin' Wolf-inspired vocals that most mesmerize. Jocque keeps the music rooted in tradition even as it breaks new ground.
