'True Blood' HBO series moves to Louisiana beat

from the Louisiana Advocate

Let’s say you are music supervisor for an HBO series about redneck vampires in backwoods Louisiana. What’s the best place to find music for the show? The musically rich state of Louisiana, naturally.

During the first season of True Blood, the music of Baton Rouge swamp blues man Slim Harpo, New Orleans’ Dr. John, Lee Dorsey and Allen Toussaint and Lafayette’s C.C. Adcock accompanied the exploits of mind-reading waitress Sookie Stackhouse (Anna Paquin) and her 173-year-old soul mate, vampire Bill Compton (Stephen Moyer).

All of the above recording artists appear on the recently released True Blood soundtrack CD as well as non-Louisianians Ryan Adams, the Watson Twins, Little Big Town, John Doe and Jace Everett.

Adcock and his band, the Lafayette Marquis, wrote and recorded their CD selection, “Bleed 2 Feed,” specifically for the show.

“To be on the same record with Lee Dorsey, Allen Toussaint and Slim Harpo,” Adcock said, “not to mention Dr. John and Lucinda Williams, is very cool company indeed.”

Adcock and the Lafayette Marquis appear in episode 10 of the first season, I Don’t Wanna Know. Playing themselves, they perform five songs at Arlene and Rene’s engagement party at Merlottes, Sookie’s place of employment.

“Playing a redneck vampire isn’t a stretch for me,” Adcock said.

Alan Ball, True Blood creator and executive producer, discovered Adcock through iTunes. The intro scene for the series’ first episode, in fact, features Adcock’s song, “Y’all’d Think She’d Be Good 2 Me.”

“After we sought clearance for his song,” music supervisor Gary Calamar said from Los Angeles, “C.C. learned about the show and got excited about it. He also wanted to show Louisiana in the great light in which it should be seen.”

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