From here, heard everywhere

Go ahead, feel the pride when locals make good. You don’t even have to like the product – it’s just uplifting to know that folks in Seattle and Omaha and even Bangkok are grooving on home-grown artists.

A sort of lagniappe then, when the work does give pleasure. Three new releases from Greater Houma (which includes New Orleans) musicians are giving me glowing grins as we speak.

POWER OF THE PONTCHARTRAIN

Houma’s reigning ambassador of roots music, Tab Benoit, branched out to country

music territory on his last record, Brother to the Blues. Backed by Louisiana’s Leroux, Benoit pulled off the genre-hopping with style and grace. He made explicit the implied family ties between each race’s soul music.

He gets back to his home turf, blues and R&B on his latest, “Power of the Pontchartrain.” He’s backed again by LeRoux, this time in their funky mode.

If this was a 12-inch, two-sided vinyl record, I’m pretty sure I’d wear out what would be side one. The CD is frontloaded with six stone-cold, in-the-pocket winners. “Don’t Make No Sense,” “Good to Ya, Baby,” “Shelter Me,” and the title cut are followed by two killer covers of Stephen Stills’ “For What It’s Worth” and the invincible Buddy Miller’s “Midnight and Lonesome.” Both leave one sated and with the urge to applaud.

The second half gets points for variety (the zydeco-flavored “Sac-au-Lait Fishing” and the soul ballad “I’m Guilty of Lovin’ You” are standouts), but a bit of the concentrated focus is lost. Small quibbles, though.

Benoit has displayed a deliberately stabbing, almost primitive picking style on his prior records (emoting an authentic blues thing?), but here he obviously opts for a fluid attack, which still pleases immensely – just another quiver in his arrow.

David Peters on drums and Leon Medica on bass are telepathically locked in and are a rhythmic marvel. Many’s the night they rocked nightclubs from Baton Rouge to Thibodaux to Houma, in their previous incarnations as the Levee Band and the Jeff Pollard Band as well as backing Gatemouth Brown. (Does the Palmetto Club mean anything to you?)

Tab is incapable of making a bad album, and this one’s very good.

WE SING OF ONLY BLOOD OR LOVE

Another Houman, Dax Riggs (that name!), is no stranger to the blues either. It’s just that his are filtered through gothic horror, David Bowie, religious symbolism and the night, always the night.

Up to now he’s performed as Deadboy & the Elephantmen, his Jack White to drummer Tessie Brunet’s Meg White. But I’m sure Mr. Riggs is sick of these comparisons; for even though he hasn’t reinvented anything, he’s surely got his own thing going, like a chef who takes common ingredients and makes something unique.

His first solo CD, “We Sing of Only Blood or Love,” opens the sonic landscape to allow for greater dynamic range. Recording with a full band on most cuts, Riggs sounds almost upbeat, if one can manage that while singing cheerful ditties like “Demon Tied to a Chair in My Brain,” “Living Is Suicide,” “Didn’t Know Yet What I’d Know When I Was Bleedin'” and “Dog-Headed Whore.”

He writes his own material (except for the occasional cover like Richard Thompson’s great “Wall of Death,” a natural fit here) and one can’t help but hope that Mr. Riggs is a bit of a puton; bleakness this profound wouldn’t seem to have any long-term prospects.

Raging guitars, pounding martial (and occasionally slinky) beats, dramatic swings from whispers to screams -they’re all here. But it’s The Voice that’ll sell you on (or drive you away from) Riggs. It’s a marvelous instrument for my tastes, full of foreboding one minute and yelling for the whole world to hear the next. And he sings with utmost sincerity.

FROM THE CORNER TO THE BLOCK

New Orleans’ Galactic have gone from channeling the Meters to becoming mainstays of the jam band scene. Anchored by the indestructible Stanton Moore on drums, Galactic has featured the old-school soul singing of Theryl “Houseman” deClouet until now (he split amicably from the band last year).

What to do?

Go out and get the funkiest MC’s you can, and sprinkle in some N.O. street seasoning for good measure, of course. “From the Corner to the Block” is the result.

Hence, we get Lyrics Born telling us “What You Need,” a laundry list of stuff that we really don’t (from “Girls Gone Wild” to clothes made in Bangladesh), Ladybug Mecca of Digible Planets sassing on “Squarebiz,” Chali 2na’s gruff baritone reminding us to “Think Back” and Juvenile and the Soul Rebels Brass Band getting down on the title track.

Not a huge fan of hip-hop, I nevertheless am truly enjoying the hell out of this. The rhythm’s the thing here, of course, and it is irresistible. The lyrics are not all braggadocio, blue and bravura, either. But all is cool.

Support homeboys; buy these.