Savoy Family Band, Live at Rhythm Roots Festival, 2006 (FestivaLink, 2006)
Various Artists, Ribbon of Highway, Endless Skyway: MerleFest 2006 (FestivaLink, 2006)

These two recorded performances are among the first offered by a new Web site, FestivaLink, which makes professional recordings of festival gigs available for download or purchase on CDs.

The Savoy Family Band is one of those bands in the background of Cajun music. They don't have the exposure, the international tours, the lengthy discographies of a BeauSoleil or Mamou Playboys. But they're one of the key players in Cajun music and culture just the same, both on their home ground of southwestern Louisiana and throughout the music scene. Both Marc and Ann Savoy have been instrumental (pun intended) in the revival of the music and culture, through making and supporting music and musicians -- Marc makes and sells instruments, particularly accordions, and Ann collects and publishes music. They play in the BeauSoleil side project Savoy-Doucet Band, and Ann has produced two Cajun outreach CDs in recent years -- the all-star Cajun music tribute Evangeline Made in 2002 and a duet CD with Linda Ronstadt, Adieu False Heart, in 2006.

So, a CD of this sort is probably the best way to hear the Savoy Family Band, outside of seeing them at a concert or dance. It was recorded live at the Rhythm Roots Festival in Rhode Island. The recording quality is top-notch, obviously professionally done but retaining the immediate quality of a live performance.

The band normally consists of Marc on accordion, Ann on guitar and most vocals, with sons Joel on fiddle and Wilson on piano. Joining them for this gig and greatly upping the rhythmic intensity on drums, is Steve Riley -- frontman of the Mamou Playboys and a cousin of Marc's. Piano is a relatively rare instrument to encounter in a Cajun band, in my admittedly limited experience, but I can see where it would greatly increase a band's danceability. Otherwise, this is a very stripped-down and traditional sounding ensemble.

This nine-song set includes lots of standards you'll be familiar with if you've heard much Cajun music, including "Blues de Bosco," "Bosco Stomp" and "Le Flames d'Enfer." Their "Blues de Bosco" is sung by one of the Savoy sons, partly in English and partly in Cajun French, and has a lively boogie-style swing thanks to that piano. The other Savoy son, Wilson, sings "Flames" in a gruff, raspy baritone.

They also do some more modern fare, including a song written by Marc in the 1960s called "She Made Me Lose My Mind," which he confesses is a French translation of Bobby Bare's "Miller's Cave." They also play Marc's "Vagabond Special," a hot two-step that opened Ann's Evangeline Made project, and Marc and sons crank out a short, ragtime tune they call "Cheese Cloth" while Ann is replacing a broken string, before finishing with the poignant "Last Waltz."

Some of today's best-known carriers of Woody Guthrie's flame performed a short set of Guthrie songs, called Ribbon of Highway, Endless Skyway, at the 2006 MerleFest in Asheville, North Carolina. The six songs are presented in this program, introduced by narration cribbed from Woody's various writings.

Main names on the program were Jimmy Lafave, Eliza Gilkyson, Slaid Cleaves and Woody's granddaughter (Arlo's daughter) Sarah Lee Guthrie and her partner Johnny Irion. They perform some of Guthrie's best-known songs, including "Do Re Mi," "I Ain't Got No Home," "Union Maid" -- with its chorus of "You can't scare me I'm sticking to the union," -- and "Deportees (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)." Eliza Gilkyson takes the lead on "Peace Call," which was on her 2004 release, Land of Milk and Honey. This song appeared in an obscure Guthrie songbook but was never recorded until Gilkyson's version. Then, everybody joins in on the obligatory finale, "This Land Is Your Land." They start it out slow, with everybody taking a turn on the verses, even some of the more obscure ones, and then speed it up into a bluegrass-style workout for the finish. A bunch of other MerleFest regulars join in as well, including Pete Seeger, Dave Rawlings, Gillian Welch, David Bromberg, Guy Clark, Verlon Thompson, Nora Guthrie and others.

As with the Savoy set, the recording is excellent, capturing the essence of a live performance with none of its rough edges smoothed off. I'm not a huge fan of Lafave, and the way he milks the emotion of "Deportees" is an example of why -- but other than that, this is a fine, if brief, performance. It only increased my desire to attend MerleFest some day -- while Doc Watson is still with us, I hope.

You can join the FestivaLink Web site for a small fee, and then download the performances you want in mp3 format or order them as CDs. Each download includes a PDF of rudimentary liner notes which you can print and fold into a jewelbox insert -- the notes are rudimentary, though. On the Guthrie tribute notes, for instance, it doesn't reveal who's performing each song. But for the price, it's still quite a good deal, and this service provides a way to distribute live recordings with the performers' approval -- and some remuneration to them as well. So do check it out.