“I’m not really in the entertainment business,” says the acclaimed singer/guitarist Corey Harris. Not that he can’t engage an audience, or draw crowds and acclaim around the world. But for Harris, the blues involves a deeper mission, and that includes weighing in when there is something timely that needs to be said.

Insurrection Blues, Harris’ 20th album overall and first for M.C. Records, continues a blues journey that began with his debut album Between Midnight and Day in 1995. The songs are full of topical relevance, yet steeped in tradition and informed by his musical explorations over the decades. Recorded in Italy under shutdown conditions, the album returns to the solo acoustic format that’s been his base since his early days as a street singer in New Orleans. But you can also hear between the lines traces of the different styles he’s absorbed, including the roots music he heard during a year’s stay in West Africa–fusing that with Delta blues on 2003’s Mississippi to Mali. His interest in the Rastafarian faith led to a reggae-inspired album, 2007’s Zion Crossroads, and later band albums like 2009’s blu.black even incorporated hp-hop. Through it all, he returned to cornerstone blues pieces, while gradually evolving from an interpreter to a songwriter.

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One of the brightest young talents to emerge in Cajun, Creole and Zydeco (Louisiana French) music over the last decade, Cedric Watson is a four-time Grammy-nominated fiddler, singer, accordionist & songwriter with seemingly unlimited potential.

Originally from San Felipe, TX (population 868), Cedric made his first appearance at the age of 19 at the Zydeco Jam at The Big Easy in Houston, TX. Just two years later, he moved to south Louisiana, quickly immersing himself in French music and language. Over the next several years, Cedric performed French music in 17 countries and on 7 full-length albums with various groups, including the Pine Leaf Boys, Corey Ledet, Les Amis Creole with Ed Poullard and J.B. Adams, and with his own group, Bijou Creole.

Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole resurrect the ancient sounds of the French and Spanish contra dance and bourré alongside the spiritual rhythms of the Congo tribes of West Africa, who were sold as slaves in the Carribean and Louisiana by the French and Spanish.