UPDATE: show is postponed until new date TBA, due to icy weather and closed roads near Baton Rouge on January 24.
***
Friday night (January 24), 2013 Best of the Beat performers Feufollet and nominees Sweet Crude will take the stage at Tipitina’s. Both among Cajun music’s most promising torchbearers, each group looks not only to uphold the treasured, Louisiana tradition but also to expand its palette.
New Orleans Cajun/indie rock band Sweet Crude joins Feufollet at Tipitina's on Friday, January 24, 2013. (Photo: Zack Smith)
Founded in 1995 by accordionist and singer Chris Stafford and fiddler Chris Segura (before either had reached puberty), Lafayette’s Feufollet has long since established itself as a favorite on the Cajun circuit. More recently, the fledgling sextet’s has matured into one of folk music’s most progressive outfits, bar none any subgenre. Feufollet’s 2010 tour de force En Couleurs, which saw the ensemble reshape the tug and timbre of traditional Cajun music into a mult-layered melange of tenderness and texture, earned the group a Grammy nomination in the short-lived Best Cajun or Zydeco Music Album category.
Sweet Crude, the latest endeavor from multi-faceted musical couple Sam Craft and Alexis Marceaux, steers its polyrhythmic Franglais chanteys through convulsive and propulsive streams of indie rock. The septet includes Sam’s brother, keyboardist Jack Craft and drummer Jon Arceneaux, both of whom played alongside Sam and Marceaux in the band Glasgow, as well as keyboardist and trumpeter Skyler Stroup, bassist and saxophonist Stephen MacDonald and percussionist Marion Tortorich. Quick studies to the Cajun tongue, this seasoned bunch of local musicians released its debut effort, the five-song EP Super Vilaine in December 2013.
Strong in conviction, steeped in tradition yet free from convention, Feufollet and Sweet Crude’s brands of Cajun music bode well for the future of the centuries-old, Southern Louisiana folkway. Doors for Friday night’s concert at Tipitina’s open at 9:00 p.m., and the show begins at 10:00. Tipitina’s is located at 501 Napoleon Avenue (map). Tickets to see Feufollet and Sweet Crude are $12.00 and available at the venue’s box office and online.
