Suitcase Sam

Goodnight Riverdale Park

CURVE MUSIC Cajun blues artist puts down the deposit on a house.

It’s difficult to believe that an artist could release a string of EPs and now a full-blown album while being of no fixed address. Yet that’s the claim made in this album’s promotional blurb.

Whether or not Suitcase Sam is grabbing the coattails of Seasick Steve, his music sounds plenty authentic enough. The Canadian sings his country rock-meets-swampy, jazzy southern outlaw blues tales in an enticing drawl, backed by fiddles, upright bass, pedal steel and, at their most raucous, on the ragtimeflavoured instrumental Maple Leaf Stomp, a resonator guitar.

Goodnight Riverdale Park is a lazy Sunday-afternoon listen that deserves to be heard.

Now, where to send that royalty cheque? ■■■■■■■■■■