In His Grace is the sonic companion to the popular musical comedy of the same name that just ended a second successful run at Lafayette’s Cite’ Des Arts Theater. When In His Grace was brought back this year, the play’s mastermind and composer Jane Billeaudeaux decided to record this disc beforehand and enlisted various musicians such as pianist David Egan, fiddler Joel Savoy and a few members of Feufollet, including multi-instrumentalist Chris Stafford (guitar, banjo, fiddle and organ) who also engineered the proceedings at his Staffland Studios.

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Though the story is based on three famous cousins from Ferriday, Louisiana, the play focuses primarily on the meteoric rise and plummeting fall of one particular evangelist, who succumbs to the temptations of greed, power and lust. For a studio recording, the live feeling is unmistakable. The sound is remarkably clear and the best jokes, such as the Ferriday townspeople singing “we welcome you by the dozens / so we won’t have to marry our cousins” (now, who could that be aimed at?) aren’t lost in a quagmire of otherwise inferior production. Even without seeing the play, the disc makes it fairly straightforward, especially with the brief track summaries noted inside the disc’s packaging. Interestingly, a couple of songs such as the music theory-spouting “Levee River Blues” and the Dixieland flurry of “In the Quarter,” could stand independently on their own. It’d be criminal if this musical comedy never left the Pelican State.