This season has been a bountiful one for Louisiana blues legend Carol Fran. Next month she’ll receive a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts; but her hometown of Lafayette gets to celebrate her first. On Thursday, September 5, there’s a concert in her honor at the Acadiana Center for the Arts (AcA). Along with a dream team of swamp blues and zydeco players, also all from Lafayette and south Louisiana, there will be a sneak preview of a documentary film on singer/pianist Fran and her remarkable six-decade career.
Carol Fran's hometown of Lafayette, LA honors her on September 5.
House band for the night will be the funky blues trio Rue Boogaloo. OffBeat writer Dan Wilging recently said they land “smack dab in the middle of where Jimmy Reed, R.L. Burnside and the Meters would all crash and smash,” and bassist Lee Allen Zeno was named 2012’s outstanding bassist by Living Blues magazine. Joining them will be zydeco favorite Chubby Carrier, swamp-blues giant Lil’ Buck Sinegal, and soulful pianist/songwriter David Egan of Lil’ Band O’Gold fame.
Though a staple of the New Orleans music scene during the 1950s and 1960s, Fran, now 79, rarely performs these days; but she hit New Orleans for a well-received show with Davell Crawford to a full house at Snug Harbor last month. Born Carol Martin in Lafayette, Fran came to New Orleans and played clubs on Bourbon Street before breaking through nationally. The legendary Excello label, released her debut single “Emmitt Lee’ in 1957; next came her version of “Crying in the Chapel” which came out before Elvis Presley made it a bigger hit. Beginning in 1982 she worked mainly with the late guitarist Clarence Holliman who also became her husband; the two recorded on the late, lamented Black Top label, and last made the album It’s About Time in 2000. Fran also performed alongside other Excello alumni at the Ponderosa Stomp in 2011.
Following the Lafayette show, Fran heads to Washington, D.C. where she’s one of only nine artists who’ll receive a National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. This is the nation’s highest honor for folk and traditional arts, instituted to “recognize folk and traditional artists for their artistic excellence and efforts to conserve America’s culture for future generations.” The award winners will be featured in an awards presentation at the Library of Congress on September 25, and in a free concert at George Washington University on September 27
An Evening Honoring 2013 NEA National Heritage Fellow Carol Fran takes place Thursday, September 5, 7:30 p.m. at the James Devin Moncus Theater inside the Acadiana Center for the Arts (101 W. Vermilion St) in Lafayette, LA. Tickets are $15 and available online at the AcA website, by phone at 337-233-7060, or at the AcA box office.
