East Coast fans can easily forget that, in Louisiana, zydeco is thought of as a local branch of Southern R&B--a close cousin of the down-to-earth, often bawdy records made by the likes of Bobby Rush, Z.Z. Hill, and Marvin Sease. So it makes perfect sense that zydeco veteran Roy Carrier would make Clarence Carter"s double-entendre R&B hit "Strokin" the title track of his new album, Zydeco Strokin". Carrier adds the syncopated, two-step zydeco beat to the tune, but delivers the lyrics in a gleeflully salacious vocal not much different from Carter"s. The rest of the album mixes zydeco rhythms and R&B vocals in a similarly satisfying manner. --Geoffrey Himes