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Baton Rouge (LA) Advocate, April 27, 2001
by John Wirt
BeauSoleil, that globe-trotting Cajun band from Lafayette, recently finished its 2001: A Cajun Space Odyssey tour. A special guest-studded, 30-date trek divided into three legs, the tour marked BeauSoleil's 25th anniversary. Michael Doucet, BeauSoleil leader, singer and fiddler, coined the tour's humorous title. "Yeah, for a lack of a better name," he said from his 1826 Cajun farmhouse in Lafayette. "I always thought of that movie, 2001: A Space Odyssey, as being so far in the future. I remember seeing it, but now here we are. Being in 2001 is almost as odd as having Cajun next to 2001 because, you know, back then in the '60s, Cajun would be the last word you'd expect for people to understand, appreciate or even use." Doucet remembers when Cajun was a bad word, when most Cajun music had little to do with traditional Cajun-French music, when school principals refused to let him play traditional Cajun songs for their students. "What you heard during most of the '70s was sort of a country and western French music," Doucet said. "You didn't hear the old-time French songs played in bars. So we decided to just play this music acoustically, like it was when we'd visit old timers. We'd go around the kitchen table and play without plugging in." Doucet obtained grants from the National Education Association and National Endowment for the Arts to document the traditional music of southwest Louisiana.
"You had recordings, but the individual masters were going and basically unknown," he said. "We didn't even know some of these people were still alive. I was awarded numerous grants to go out and find these people, and that's what I did." A grant also enabled Doucet and the late, beloved Cajun fiddler, Dewey Balfa, to present traditional Cajun music at schools. "That's how to tell kids about this music, on a good level, not a bunch of drunks who play on Saturday night," Doucet said. "We had principals who refused to have this music in their schools, but a lot of them were open to it. I think we made an impression there, and Dewey was such an inspiration."For many years BeauSoleil was just a weekend gig. The group didn't even have a name until it got an invitation to perform in Paris in 1976. "We never even thought about having a name," Doucet said. "It was just us, no big deal. But they (the Paris folks) wanted a name and that's how BeauSoleil came about, to go play in France."While in France, the band got asked by a Frenchman if it had any records. No, we didn't have any records, they said. So then the Frenchman asked if they'd like to make a record. "We said, 'Yeah, sure,' " Doucet recalled. Then they asked who the inquisitive Frenchman was. "He was the president of EMI," Doucet said. Though the band had just five more days in France, studio time was quickly booked and BeauSoleil became a recording act. Stateside recordings for the Ville Platte-based Swallow label and the Texas-based Arhoolie followed. "Chris Strachwitz from Arhoolie, which is a great label, ends up chasing me around my house with a tape recorder," Doucet said. "He puts out a record and it gets pretty good reviews. So we started being asked to play different places." By 1986, BeauSoleil's national profile had risen thanks to radio shows like A Prairie Home Companion and the band's four albums, including the soundtrack to Belizaire the Cajun. The group decided to take the full-time music plunge. But Doucet and BeauSoleil were determined to do things on their own terms. "First of all, it was French music and folk music. We weren't going to move to Nashville or be Nashville country. We weren't going to move to L.A., New York or Montreal. We were going to be based here. "We figured, let's see what happens. I said, 'Well, if it lasts six months, that's great.' We did it, and we've been doing it ever since," Doucet said with a laugh.
Twenty-five years of BeauSoleil, said David Doucet, guitarist and brother of Michael Doucet, "that's a big chunk of time. Spooky is what it is." BeauSoleil avoids burnout, David Doucet added, because it's always changing and growing. "You like the music," he said, "so you just figure out how to put a little more soul in it, do a little more in it." BeauSoleil has a practical side, too, Doucet said. The band is, after all, a job for its members. "You got to make a living, so it's really wonderful to have been given this opportunity. It's kind of alternative in a way and you get to express yourself. The traveling part is hard, but the playing is still a lot of fun. And we work well together; that's probably why we've been a band with essentially the same members for 25 years." "Everybody pulls their own weight," Michael Doucet said. "I mean it was so great to get them to do this in the first place, back in the '70s." There's no sibling or musical rivalry between David Doucet, who doubles as BeauSoleil's road manager, and his high-profile older brother, Michael. "It's his band, he's the front guy," David said. "I got no problem with that. And being a front guy is not much fun. Since I'm the road manager, I always tell him about these interviews and things he has to do. He just groans. "Even if the Cajun Space Odyssey tour has landed, BeauSoleil can look forward to its New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival performance. "The stages that we play on," Michael Doucet said, "we always see people that we've been playing for during the past 30 years. I think they only come out for that event." Huge though the Jazz Fest has become, Doucet said it still has its special moments. "I can remember them having Dennis McGee and Sady Courville on this little stage under an oak tree, 15 people there. It was a magic moment. But what goes on in the grandstands now, with the workshops, is pretty amazing. The gospel and the jazz tents are always great. "It's harder to walk around because there's more people, but they're basically there for the same reasons - because they love music, the food and, hey, it's New Orleans. That's a great natural celebration. I think everybody needs their Jazz Festival fix."
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This article is copyrighted © by the Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser and is used with permission. This web site was originated through a grant awarded to Carencro High School (Joel Hilbun/Bobbi Marino, Grant Administrators) by the State Board of Elementary and Secondary Education from the Louisiana Quality Education Support Fund - 8(g). |
