Remember the Dr. Tommy Comeaux Endowed Chair in Traditional Music that was reported in this space last month? Well, it turns out that the fundraising concert known as Medicine Show Two, hosted by Lafayetteís Grant Street Dancehall, was broadcast in its entirety on the University of Southwestern Louisiana-based public-radio station KRVS and carried on the web at http://www.louisianaradio.com. Although details about the dollar-amount generated by the show and its broadcasts were not available at press time, thereís no question that this most worthy of projects has generated an unprecedented level of interest and enthusiasm, both local and not so local, and shows no signs of petering out.
Another project that continues to pick up steam is the release of the complete Van Broussard catalogue on Jimmy Rogersí Forney, Texas-based CSP Records. The latest, a 20-track compilation heavy on Broussardís previously unreleased or hardest-to-find material, is titled ó somewhat misleadingly, as no guests appear on the album ó A Tribute.
Six of the best songs on the album come from the 1960ís, the decade in which Broussard made the records that would eventually help to legitimize “swamp pop” as a genuine rock and roll genre and land him in the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame. None of the sixó”Feed the Flame,” “Everyday Will Be like a Holiday,” “Sheís Just Teasing You,” “Tell Me the Truth,” “Go On and Yak-Yak,” and “Blues Stay Away from Me”óappear on The Early Years (Rogersí excellent 1993 compilation of Broussard at his ë50ís-í60ís peak), although the performance by Broussard and his sister Grace of “Pledging My Love” that the new collection identifies as a 1977 performance sounds a lot like the one on The Early Years identified as coming from 10-to-20 years earlier.
Whatever its vintage, the performance is strong. In fact, with the exception of a tepid “Play That Funky Music” (white boy, indeed) and “Tonightís the Night” (no Britt Ekland), both dating from the mid-í70ís, A Tribute reveals Broussard to have been far more concerned with making othersí songs his own than the average career cover artist. Rogers had intended to make Broussardís 1998 the latest in his string of CSP-released all-new recordings. Then the 50-something Broussard had a heart attack.
“He was at home when he had it,” Rogers remembers. “At first they werenít sure whether it was angina or heart-attack indigestion, but it didnít set well with him or the paramedics.”
Several days and several failed medical tests later, Broussard underwent triple-bypass heart surgery.
“Heís doing great,” Rogers continues. “Heís made a complete recovery and performing again on a regular basis.”
Even though the album that Rogers had hoped to record with Broussard and his Bayou Boogie Band is on indefinite hold, Rogers insists that “there will definitely be one. Weíre already working on the idea of what songs we might do. Weíve got a couple of original tunes, a few coversó”I Wonít Cry” and “Sick and Tired” are a couple of themó and Dan Penn has sent us a couple of tunes.”
Rogersí connection with Penn, whose compositions include the classics “Iím Your Puppet,” “The Dark End of the Street,” and “Do Right WomanóDo Right Man,” through Harold “Hog” Cowart, the Bayou Boogie Bandís bassist and the owner of Bluff Road Recording Studio in Prairieville, where Broussard and Co., recorded their 1996 album, By Special Request. In addition to bagging two Penn tunes for the next Broussard album, Rogers has also gotten Pennís permission to include a version of “Zero Willpower” on the spring-í99 debut album of CSPís latest signees, Crosscut. “My wife liked the song so much that she suggested we call Dan and see what he thought about putting it on the album. I called him, and he said it would be a wonderful idea.”
Though based in Texas, Crosscut will court fans of southwest-Louisianaís music by featuring cameo contributions by Broussard, his horns, and Wayne Toups. “Iím going to have Wayne playing the accordion on a song called ëLouisiana Bound,í which the Crosscut guys wrote with Wayne in mind. And I think we might get Van and Wayne to do a duet.
“The album is going to be about half originals and half covers, and the covers will include things like ëIíve Been Loviní You Too Long,í ëShe Put the Hurt on Me,í ëI Hear You Knocking,í ëBring It On Home to Meíóin other words, songs thatíll be very familiar to the south-Louisiana market. Itís going to be a mixture of everything from country and swamp pop to soul and blues.”
Itís not exactly telling tales out of school to point out that many Cajun-music albums are so similar sounding that only experts can tell them apart. Traditional songs played on traditional instruments at traditional tempos and sung by Cajuns with traditional vocal timbres may keep the tradition alive, but they also make the experience of listening to the tradition rather tedious.
Thank goodness, therefore, for the occasional out-of-let-field Cajun disc that, deliberately or not, gives the tradition a good tweak. 1998 had three such albums, one of which, Les Flammes DíEnfer by the Deaf Heights Cajun Aces (Temple), was so out-of-let-field that despite being first released in 1987 (it has just been re-released in the U.S. by Rounder) it has been completely overlooked. Neither Michael Tisserandís book Kingdom of Zydeco nor Nyhan-Rollins-Babbís encyclopedic Let the Good Times Roll, for instance, acknowledges its existence.
The albumís failure to show up on the radar screen of Cajun music may have something to do with the fact that the Deaf Heights Cajun Aces are Scottish. Or it may have something to do with the fact that these Scots play “Colinda” and “Allons a Lafayette” with a rock-and-roll heart and energy that borders on the punky. Either way, Les Flammes DíEnfer proves that the tradition can withstand both youthful energy and a foreign spin. Quite possibly the best Cajun album of 1987 and 1998.
Another pleasant surprise is Rufus and Tony Thibodeauxís Fiddliní with Friends (La Louisianne). Those who think that an album of 15 Cajun and Western-swing-inflected waltzes and swamp-pop songs featuring two of southwest Louisianaís finest fiddlers and the steel-guitar of River Roadís Richard Comeaux sounds good on paper should hear it coming out of the speakers.
They should also remember that, between the two of them, the Thibodeauxs have performed with everyone from Neil Young, George Jones, and Bob Wills to Aldus Roger, Sleepy Hoffpauir, and Jo-El Sonnier. The talent that has placed them among the most sought-after Cajun musicians and the taste that theyíve developed in the deployment of their skills are evident throughout Fiddliní with Friends. And because their “friends” include Vin Bruce and Johnnie Allan (who sing three songs apiece) and Warren Storm (who sings two, one of which is an ace version of “Prisonerís Song”), the vocals are as enjoyable as the fiddling.
The third distinctive Cajun-music longplayer of recent months is Mitch Landry and the Cajun Ramblersí Not Too Fast and Not Too Slow. Released last September on the venerable Lanor label, the album represents the last production job of Lee Lavergne, the Cajun-music enthusiast whose lifelong involvement in the writing, production, and promotion of the music made him both well known and well loved in Acadiana. “We began the project with him at Sound Center Recorders [in Church Point],” Mitch Landry recalls. “Then within a couple days after heíd finished mastering and transferring our final mixdown from ADAT to DAT tape, he had a heart attack and died.”
The suddenness of Lavergneís death put Lanor Records and Landryís album in legal limbo for over half-a-year. With its eventual release, however, songs such as Hank Williamsí “Cajun Baby” and the Lavergne-penned “Iím Glad You Chose to Love Me” revealed Landry and his Cajun Ramblers to be something more than the typical Cajun combo.
So did the albumís sound. In contrast to the no-frills studio ethic preferred by most Cajun ensembles óan ethic that sometimes results from nothing more than a lack of imaginationóLandry and Lavergne went for a fuller sound. One listen to Landryís versions of “Allons a Lafayette” and “Jolie Blonde” reveals the degree to which even a detail as small as a touch of echo can make some of the most-covered songs in the Cajun repertoire worth hearing one more time.
“In my circumstance, itís a marketing concept,” says Landry, whose Baton Rouge base has placed him outside the Acadiana loop and made him beholden to a somewhat less traditional clientele. “Weíre a little bit outside of Cajun country, and weíre not in the tourist-trap area of New Orleans. So weíre kind of in between.
“Being here in Baton Rouge,” he adds, “we get a lot of convention and visitor-type opportunities to play. So instead of trying to make an album to appeal only to the traditional, hard-core Cajun people, we wanted to make an album that if people would stop and give it a chance, theyíd find something on there that they like.”
