Bon temps brotherhood

On Dec. 4, 2008, the day the 2009 Grammy nominees were announced, Pine Leaf Boys leader Wilson Savoy pounded out a 300-word blog entry revealing his disappointment in the Recording Academy’s selections. His band’s new album Homage au Passe was up for Best Zydeco or Cajun Album against other Lafayette-area artists like BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet, Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys, and former Pine Leaf Boy Cedric Watson, so what upset Savoy? The exclusion of progressive Creole sextet Feufollet.

“When you listen [to Feufollet’s Cow Island Hop], you hear a bunch of young guys and a girl who have been influenced by all kinds of music and are not afraid to mix it with their Cajun roots and kick ass,” Savoy wrote. “Had they been nominated, I feel that these nominees would give a more accurate picture of Cajun music today.”

Savoy’s fiery blog exemplifies the strong brotherhood among these Louisiana musicians. Riley is Savoy’s cousin. Doucet is like his honorary uncle. They’ve all played together and broken bread together—many have even lived together—and yet find themselves competing for the same Grammy year in and year out since the Zydeco or Cajun Music category was created in 2008.

Pine Leaf Boys drummer Drew Simon defined this camaraderie more succinctly during Louisiana’s pre-Grammy concert at Café Fais Do Do in downtown Los Angeles, where he playfully shouted for Steve Riley to take off his shirt mid-set. Riley did not oblige, or maybe he couldn’t make out Simon’s request over the blazing, saw’s-edge sound of his own accordion.

Bitter territorial wars have been waged over such genre-specific accolades, most famously the East Coast vs. West Coast rap feud of the 1990s. But in a year that saw South Louisiana artists successfully defend the new category, we dominated the rap game, too. New Orleans’ Lil Wayne walked away with four trophies, including Rap Album of the Year. During the Grammy telecast, Wayne merged rap with Louisiana’s indigenous music by appearing with Allen Toussaint, Terence Blanchard and The Dirty Dozen Brass Band.

“It’s almost incestuous,” said pianist David Egan, who, in the middle of Riley’s set, leaned over to quantify the scene for me. “But in the best possible way.”

Cedric Watson and Bijou Creole were swinging away on stage, and one particular Los Angeleno stood comfortably alone just feet from Watson, looking up wide-eyed as his skinny legs shimmied and shook. “That is badass,” the guy said, pointing at Watson and his frenetic washboard player. “You are badass!”

“When we were nominated, we all congratulated each other,” Watson says. “We’re all close, and I lived with the Pine Leaf Boys for three years. I wouldn’t consider it a competition. When I recorded this album, I wasn’t going for no Grammy.”

As the jump-jivin’ crowd of converts swayed, finding the most unlikely Zydeco fan in the crowd became my goal for the night. And there, toward the back of the bar that could have been airlifted from Frenchmen Street, stood Mike, a tall, slender thirtysomething—from Sweden. Bingo. Turns out Mike just loves this stuff. The flying fiddles, the Creole guitar licks, the laissez-faire vocals. This Scandinavian eats them up like the jambalaya that worked its way happily through Café Fais Do Do. “As soon as I walked in I was like ‘Ahh,’” he said, unfolding a couple of pale arms and shaking his hands like he was receiving a blessing from the Holy Spirit.

Swedish Mike’s adoration struck at something that occurred to me over and over throughout Grammy weekend: there is a deep spiritual element to the way outsiders view Louisiana music. At the Grammys, CSI: NY star Gary Sinise called New Orleans a musical “Garden of Eden” that still needs tending, and Grammy-winning jazz trumpeter Terence Blanchard recounted how Herbie Hancock told him New Orleans was the very soul of our nation’s culture. At the pre-Grammy “Only in Louisiana” luncheon, The Blind Boys of Alabama fused the melody of Big Easy favorite “House of the Rising Sun” with the gospel of “Amazing Grace.” In the Grammys printed program, singer-songwriter Ben Harper wrote that his friendship with the Blind Boys and founder Clarence Fountain, a longtime Baton Rougean, was sacred.

The Blind Boys were honored with the Lifetime Achievement Award, and Fountain, now 80 and semi-retired in Baton Rouge, says he is grateful for the late career laurels.

“You know you’ve done something good your whole life when they give you one of those,” Fountain says. “You can’t get any higher than that. We got our fifth Grammy and we’re working on number six.”

After the show the crowd was buzzing for more. Where can we download Steve Riley’s album? I’ve never heard someone like Cedric Watson!

And there at the center of the Café Fais Do Do circus stood Johnny Palazzotto, relishing the glorious feedback and the joyous crowd, but above all the music. “Where else can you find Cajun, Zydeco, jazz, rock’n’roll, and hip hop indigenous to a state?” he says. “Many of these musicians play in several bands and really enjoy each other’s contributions. I haven’t noticed anything but respect between them.”

As everyone now knows, it was the elder statesmen of the genre, Michael Doucet, and his band BeauSoleil who came out on top this year, winning Best Zydeco or Cajun Music Album for Live At The 2008 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. Doucet grew up near Scott, La., learning from Dennis McGee and other fiddle greats. The 57-year-old loves that younger musicians like the Pine Leaf Boys have taken up the mantle. He believes this closeness among them comes from their shared heritage, and that it should be protected.

“All of us have the same heroes in music and the same attitude of appreciating the past while trying to push it forward,” Doucet says. “Our music is so woven into the culture and the food of the region, and it’s not that we want to go back; we want to go forward. But it’s the whole way of life, of holding on to this culture when all of these forces are coming from the outside to wash it away.”