I've heard Louisiana-rooted music most of my life while managing not to be any kind of authority on the subject. Yet I recognize it for its unique and pleasing qualities, which are various, reaching everything from Cajun and zydeco to country, r&b and jazz. As producer, musician and songwriter Warren Schexnider, known professionally as Warren Storm, stands out as a hero of swamp pop, originally a fusion sound, long since a genre unto itself. Swamp pop, a dance-hall and radio staple in bordering southeast Texas as much as south Louisiana, has influenced a range of artists from Slim Harpo and Jerry Lee Lewis to Dr. John and John Fogerty.

In fact, Fogerty appears on the first cut of Taking the World, by Storm, backing Storm's reading of Fogerty's "Long As I Can See the Light." It seems a perfect introduction to the funky rockabilly, hillbilly, blues, folk and Cajun accents that follow. This was what the grittiest pop music sounded like in the 1950s and '60s, showing up on the charts -- though more often to be found in regional joints where only a decade before fiddles and accordions had led the charge -- that teenaged frippery ordinarily dominated. There were adolescent-targeted swamp rockers, of course, but at its core the genre felt grown-up, performed by singers who had grown-up stories to tell and (as often as not) non-frivolous emotions to impart.

Well, Taking the World is like that, a lovingly chosen 11 songs from the repertoires of Earl King ("Lonely Nights"), Dave Bartholomew ("Let the Four Winds Blow"), Bobby Charles ("Tennessee Blues"), Merle Haggard ("My House of Memories") and even the folk tradition ("The Prisoner's Song"; Storm, who recorded it for the first time in 1958, offers up a version not much like the Carter Family's [titled "Meet Me in the Moonlight"]). Pioneering swamp-pop man-of-all-parts J.D. Miller is honored with a couple of cuts, among them "Mama, Mama, Mama," on which Louisiana vocalist Yvette Landry joins him to exhilarating effect.

Landry, as it happens, is responsible for the project, after meeting Storm, now in his early 80s, in 2018. She went on to write a book, Taking the World, by Storm: A Regional Roots Journey with the Godfather of Swamp Pop (2019), published by University of Louisiana Press at Lafayette. Notwithstanding his age -- or, contrarily, perhaps owing to his maturity and long experience -- Storm communicates endearingly, never missing a chance to infuse soul and conviction, yet always in a easy. conversational tone, to a performance. He's backed by a first-rate five-piece band, plus guest artists with celebrated slide-guitarist Sonny Landreth in their ranks.

If you don't have anything like this in your record collection, here's your chance to correct that oversight.