Starting in the late 1950's, Floyd Soileau established and ran a whole mess of record labels out of Ville Platte, Louisiana. Initially he only recorded Cajun tunes, but soon branched out into virtually every kind of music made in the region, at least in theory often consigning individual labels to specific styles. Maison de Soul was his label for R&B/Zydeco recordings, although Clifton Chenier also recorded a number of sides for his Bayou imprint.
As far as I know Floyd's Record Store is still open in Ville Platte, but it's geared towards tourism, bills itself as the oldest record store in the state, and carries various sorts of Cajun™ related items. I think you can still go in there and buy a mixed box of 100 Jin, Swallow, and later Maison de Soul 45's for $30 [be very careful what you buy on ebay, these are new pressings which individually retail for slightly more than $1].
Anyway, this is one of the older Maison de Soul issues. As Martin Lawrie from the Soul Generation site says concerning older releases versus newer issues, "I have found that there is a simple rule to this record label - anything with a label that looks like this = BUY, and anything with a label that looks more comical and simpliefied = DONT BUY!".
Believe me, the man speaks the gospel truth. The stuff produced in the eighties is universally horrible, I don't own a single example....and I'll gladly give you $20 for anything on the label pressed earlier.
Al Prince? I don't know a thing about him. Sucks, but it's the truth.
Hope ya'll enjoy.....
