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Tab Benoit’s new album “Power of the Pontchartrain” doesn’t mention Hurricane Katrina once by name, and yet its effect on this New Orleans bluesman’s life blows through every song.

Benoit (pronounced ben-wah) spent two furious days in the studio, committing his feelings to tape before they could be edited or watered down.

“We just show up and start playing,” Benoit said by phone. “As we play back the stuff it’s kind of a surprise to us.”

When he sings the Stephen Stills classic “For What It’s Worth” in his Cajun-flavored rumbles and growls, the images begin to shift shape and meaning.

“Singing songs and carrying signs” gives way to a new verse: “Can’t help our people in need/muddy water in the street/there’s no sense of pride/I wanna know who’s really on our side.”

And the chorus almost becomes a plea to a nation that has grown weary of his city’s story: “Stop, children, what’s that sound/everybody look what’s going down.

It’s been two decades since Benoit, 39, emerged from Louisiana’s blues shacks with his guitar in hand, but the past year has brought him more success than he’s ever before enjoyed.

He garnered a 2006 Grammy nomination for Best Traditional Blues Album for “Brother to the Blues.” He won Blues Music Association awards in 2007 for Con temporary Blues Artist of the Year and B.B. King Entertainer of the Year. And he contributed much of the music to the IMAX documentary “Hurricane on the Bayou,” narrated by Meryl Streep.

Besides all that, Benoit is a road warrior. He’s been a regular in Colorado Springs for several years; his first visit in about a year is Tuesday night at Thirsty Parrot.

Some members of Louisiana’s LeRoux (who had a few Top 40 hits back in the 1980s) will fill out his band.

“We got together at a festival here a couple years ago and we hit it off,” Benoit said, his drawl loping slowly off the end of his tongue. “They play blues with a pop sense about it. The way they play with me, they smooth out some of the rough edges without stripping the life out of it.

“Because my favorite stuff is the rough stuff.”

Benoit is proud of his music’s bayou flair, and of the devotion to New Orleans that is so obvious in his songs.

“There’s different feeling and different grooves in the music here,” he said.

The gumbo of Caribbean, African, Acadian and American sounds is the basis of that feel, he said, and it’s a musical heritage that cooks. Whether it’s heads bobbing or feet moving, he wants to see his audience in motion: “If it ain’t moving, it ain’t music.”

Benoit agrees that the specter of Katrina hangs over his music nowadays. “If it’s working on me, it becomes part of the music. I’m just doing what I’m feeling at the time,” he said. “I think that’s what an artist should do.”

Benoit is consumed by the concepts of feel and artistry. He insists, “I don’t go out for a certain sound, I go out for a certain feel.” And he hopes that the honesty and depth of his feel is what will mark him as an artist with staying power. “When you’re chasing the pop music, you’re chasing the flavor of the day. It’s gonna change tomorrow,” Benoit said.

“Most real artists aren’t that popular during their lifetime. Put in a Robert Johnson record and it still sounds better than anyone else. He’s still got that thing that doesn’t get old.”

details

Tab Benoit featuring Louisiana’s LeRoux

When: 7 p.m. Tuesday Where: Thirsty Parrot, 32 S. Tejon St.

Tickets: $20-$40; call 884-1094 or go to thirstyparrot.net