On Saturday nights in Southwest Louisiana, a weekly ritual unfolds in the bars and clubs along the -crawfish circuit.- Working men and women exchange their work clothes for plumed Stetsons and fancy dresses and converge on rural road houses for an infusion of zydeco--the exuberant dance music of Louisiana's black Creole community.

In eighty stunning portraits of the genre's leading people and places and through extensive interviews and historical commentary, photographer Rick Olivier and journalist/musician Ben Sandmel have created a book as spirited as the rollicking music it so...