Evangeline, Evangeline, (Margaritaville/MCA)

It’s a pity more music like this doesn’t come through the Nashville pipeline. The first act signed to Jimmy Buffett’s new Margaritaville label, Evangeline is a New Orleans based group of five women and a “token” male drummer.

Folks in Mobile and New Orleans call this stuff gumbo rock, in honor of the way gumbo is usually cooked up, using whatever seafood and spices are handy. Thus the band’s music mixes the sounds floating around the Gulf Coast: clean country, crunchy R&B and breezy folk. They’re not out to save the world but they sound like great entertainers.

Many of the albums 11 cuts are originals and several are strong. “If I Had a Heart” is a straight country tune worthy of airplay, “Hurricane” had a funkier groove, and “Bon Temps La Louisiane” is a rollicking bayou closer. Some of the better cuts, however, are covers of standards. Vocalist Kathleen Stieffel sings a fine duet with Buffett (who sings surprisingly well too) on Nanci Griffith’s poetic “Gulf Coast Highway,” and vocalist Sharon Leger gives spunk to the rave-up “Hey Rene,” written by Brendan Croker of the Notting Hillbillies. The show is stolen, however, by third vocalist and Mississippi native Beth McKee, who was a part of the Austin blues scene before joining the group. Her soulful rendition of Van Morrison’s “Carrying a Torch” and ragged version of Jesse Winchester’s “Rhumba Girl” put her in a class with a young Bonnie Raitt.

With Raitt becoming a star in recent years, and with Delbert McClinton even getting some of his due, this is one of the first roots music groups to follow in these tracks. The women in Evangeline are wearing the same boots and carrying the same Stratocasters and credentials. Although some of the session players are from Nashville, the sound is more instrumentally hot than most Music Row records are allowed to be.

With a debut this assured, let’s hope it doesn’t take Evangeline 20 years to get the recognition and sales it deserves. If it does take that long, we can at least consider ourselves in on something real from the start.  - Nashville Scene