Las Vegas-based r&b saxophonist and twice (2021/2022) winner of the Blues Music Award, Jimmy Carpenter isn't a native of New Orleans, but he did live and work there for a dozen years between 2004 and 2016. Its influence on his playing and singing on The Louisiana Record, consisting of his versions of songs associated with the Crescent City, is clear and unforced. The songs come from the likes of Fats Domino, Dave Bartholomew, Allen Toussaint, Sam Cooke, Dr. John and other past masters of musical steam and swamp.

The arrangements are refreshingly straightforward, the back-up musicians New Orleans thoroughgoing pros. The atmosphere is loose and relaxed, and the songs melodic and affectingly sung. There is nothing profound in the lyrics, but nothing to insult your intelligence, either. Carpenter's sax weaves in and out of the arrangements, drawing awe while seemingly not seeking it. Instead, the mood is attractively conversational. He's also a very fine vocalist, not always true when the artist's fame rests on instrumental gifts.

Though I recognize all but one or two of these songs, I am not especially immersed in this branch of America's grassroots music. (I have, however, long admired the late Professor Longhair's recordings.) Such neglect is not out of any antipathy to it; it's because it's just not possible -- unless one has no other life -- to hear everything one wants to hear and to hear enough of it to be able to talk and listen with authority. I feel akin to the buffoonish observer who boasts that while he doesn't know much about some subject, he is certain of what he likes, conversation closed. I don't think I've reduced myself to that when I suggest that experts and novices both will like what they hear here: simply put, superior music ably performed, recognizable to anyone with functioning ears.

No, the band responsible for Let's Go! does not consist of a bunch of guys named William who missed breakfast. The name honors legendary New Orleans drummer Charles "Hungry" Williams, and it's not plural. The Hungry Williams is an assembly of veteran Milwaukee musicians who decided they wanted to play hard-swinging, Caribbean-lilted 1950s Crescent City pop, along with originals that could pass for it. The intellectual author, drummer and founder John Carr, got the idea in 1995 after hearing a Chess collection of the relevant period music.

You can argue, if you wish, that such unapologetic appropriation is some species of artistic crime. You can also argue that a cold-hearted effort to control what people can celebrate on either side of the performance is its own kind of crime. In my view the question ought to be whether it works or not. No one will, or at least should, dispute that this album works, is a whole lot of fun, will make you feel better, and is warmly played and recorded. If those matter to you, pay no attention to whatever buzz-killers may or may not be trying to drone out contrary sentiment.

Of the 10 cuts, five are covers, the rest originals, but mostly the two categories are indistinguishable. In the former there's an energetic, good-humored reading of Sticks McGhee's "One Monkey Don't Stop No Show," this one based on the Big Maybelle record. Band members Carr, Kelli Gonzalez and Joe Vent conjure up the peculiar comic drama "669 (Across the Street from the Beast)," which details the experience of having Satan for a neighbor. Some of us already know what that's like. The band's telling of it is much funnier, though.

By the way, I believe that's lead singer Kelli Gonzalez on the cover wearing an old-fashioned prop plane for a hat, and looking very pleased with herself. Yeah, it's that kind of album: sometimes crazier than hell, yet never less than flight-worthy.