Daiquiri Queens: John Dowden, accordion; Jamie Lynn Fontenot, guitar; Chelsea Moosekian, drums; former bassist Sabra Guzmán; Miriam McCracken, guitar; Tysman Charpentier, fiddle.
by Dominick Cross
In mid-June, the Daiquiri Queens debut CD hit the streets.
Said streets are a little more empty these days as the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic continues to embroil this ball of confusion we call Earth.
Nevertheless, the self-titled, 10-song disc of traditional Cajun music is out. Finally.
“We were going to put it out for Festival International,” said Jamie Lynn Fontenot, who with Miriam McCracken, fronts the band. As we know, the pandemic sent Festival into the virtual world, as it will Festivals Acadiens et Creoles come October.
“It just kept never happening,” Fontenot said. “And then the coronavirus started and all of our gigs cancelled, and all of our CD release ideas were no longer what was up.
“It’s been pretty anti-climatic since no one’s playing,” she said. “I don’t know.”
Fontenot and McCracken sing and play guitar; John Dowden is on accordion/fiddle, Tysman Charpentier plays fiddle, and Chelsea Moosekian is on drums. Bassist Sabra Guzmán has left the band.
The CD was recorded at Staffland Studio and produced by Chris Stafford, who sat in on guitar and pedal steel. Olivia Perillo designed the CD package.
Bands usually sell a chunk of their music at gigs and festivals and that’s not happening these days for obvious reasons.
So the Daiquiri Queens CD is available at iTunes, Apple Music and the like, as well as through the band.
“It’s pretty easy, actually,” said Fontenot. “Hopefully, we’re going to do some digital performance stuff.”
A CD doubles as a band’s calling card sent to reviewers, festivals, venues, radio stations.
“You also have to have something for bookers that want to book you for festivals that aren’t in Louisiana. They generally ask you where your album is,” Fontenot said. “This is preferable.”
Good word of mouth specs are a plus, but knowing how a band sounds is to know whether it will fit with a particular festival or venue.
“I’m glad we have something besides YouTube videos to send to festival bookers that email us,” said Fontenot.
“We’ve been playing together for two years or more with this set-up,” she said. “So it’s cool to have that done and we’re stoked about what the next record will sound like.”
While a traditional Cajun music group, do know that the Cajun music band puts newfound energy into the trad songs.
There are no originals on the CD, and it does include songs by Dale Dugas. The band honored Dugas at last year’s Festivals Acadiens et Creoles by wearing T-shirts with her image on it and playing her songs they found.
Dugas’ 1993 release “Chanteuse Cadjinne” on Swallow records netted her Female Vocalist of the Year honors by the Cajun French Music Association (CFMA) in 1994.
Dugas was in the audience that afternoon, but due to lung cancer she was unable to sing with the band. On May 1, Dugas passed away.
“The album’s kind of dedicated to her,” said Fontenot. “And there’s multiple songs of her’s that we did.”
Looking ahead, on the calendar for the band this fall is an almost three-week jaunt around Germany, an annual road trip of sorts organized by a Cajun music connoisseur there.
“He seems to be optimistic that it’s still going to go on,” Fontenot said. “That’s the only thing that we’ve got coming up.”
It’s something positive to look forward to, well, that and performing live.
“If we get to go to Germany that would be awesome,” said Fontenot. “If we at all start playing gigs again in the near future, that would be fun.”
Time will tell. In the meantime, Fontenot summed up the feelings of many a musician.
It was the second week of June and after three unintentional phone calls to Sam Broussard over two days, I figured it was a sign that I should phone the musician straight away.
Besides, based on conversations with Sam Broussard that I’ve had since the mid-1990s, a call to him usually adds a necessary touch of levity.
At this juncture in June 2020, we’re currently looking at the coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic, the mass demonstrations across the country over the death of George Floyd, an African American, at the knee of a white police officer, and, not surprisingly, the rising numbers of virus infections.
Sam Broussard with David Greely, left, and Steve Riley at Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys 25th Anniversary concert at Acadiana Center for the Arts in 2013. DCross photo
Nationally and politically, the feeling of real change mixes cautiously with the troubled air regarding minority relations and law enforcement and other U.S. race issues.
And if we zoom in, we can see that local demonstrations have been peaceful in Acadiana. If truth follows fiction, the statue of a confederate officer/slave owner in downtown Lafayette may soon come down from its pedestal.
Also at this time, since the late-March shutdown, the state is looking at going to Phase 3 in the overly optimistic drive to return to normal regarding the pandemic.
Already this month, Second Saturday ArtWalk returned, and it appears live music has returned to some venues, indoors/outdoors, in the region.
So when I called Broussard, we chatted a bit about the chaotic world that we’re all immersed in accompanied with the usual wit, sarcasm, frustration and maybe even hope that such calls have entailed over the years.
During the call, I learned Broussard is in the process of working on his and Barry Jean Ancelet’s follow-up to their “Broken Promised Land” recording some three years ago.
So we set time aside for an interview for Bayou Hack Press (www.bayouhackpress.com) two days hence.
In a nutshell, the 2017 recording is Broussard’s music put to Ancelet’s Cajun French poetry. It’s a concept that worked so well it received a Grammy nomination in the Best Regional Roots Album category.
The day arrived and before we got into the new recording, “Blacker Than the Devil’s Feet,” I had to ask Broussard if he’d play an indoor gig these days.
Nary a second passes.
“No,” said Broussard.
Not that I was surprised with his answer, but I asked him why, as the state stumbles through Phase II, while Lafayette plows straight into Phase V.
“The numbers are going up in the places where large gatherings are happening,” Broussard said. “I think Arizona has 7,000 new cases (‘question mark,’ he added). I just saw that. Indoors is too risky, especially for my age group.
“I think the chances of getting the virus are very, very slim, but that’s not good enough,” he said. “For me.”
“I don’t really want to do any gigs. Maybe at the beginning of August I’ll look around, but I don’t think anything’s going to change,” said Broussard. “I’m going to let the number of new cases decide when I work. And, again, that’s because of my age group.”
For the record, the multi-instrumentalist/singer songwriter is 68.
I told Broussard about local clubs offering live indoor music that coming weekend. And since then, I’ve seen social media posts of unmasked bands and unmasked dancers passing a good time over the weekend.
They’re some crazy souls in my book. Broussard has his own take on it.
“To me, there are two classes of people: People who don’t mind the risk of endangering the life of a healthcare worker; and those who do mind,” Broussard said. “It was just a couple of weeks ago that we thought they were so precious.
“And now, it’s kind of like, ‘Oh, well. I need my freedom,'” he said. “I just bear in mind how much we care about them.
Barry Ancelet, director, Festivals Acadiens et Creoles at Girard Park. DCross photo
“If I got sick, I’d have to think, ‘Oh, my God. Someone’s going to have to take care of me,'” Broussard continued. “I think that step right there is missing in the calculations of the ‘freedom-loving’ crowd.”
I mentioned that one of the reasons given for opening up cities and towns was that hospitals didn’t fill up like previously thought.
Broussard said Arizona apparently maxed out their ICU capabilities with the rise in new cases. I said it will be interesting to see what happens around here amid the rush to reopen.
“Nothing good,” Broussard dryly stated.
With that, we moved on to the original the reason I’d called.
Broussard said that all of the music and most of the poems (songs) for “Blacker Than the Devil’s Feet” were written specifically for the album. On the previous album, Broussard wrote the music to poetry already written by Ancelet, save one.
“The modus operandi is that I write music to his poetry. It doesn’t always fit, it seldom fits like a glove, so he and I get together and work on it,” Broussard said. “We worked on carving his poems to fit the music that I come up with.
“And we try to do that without soiling the integrity of the poetry,” he said. “It works really well. We have fun doing it. We’re not doing it in person now, but over the phone.”
“It’s a good process. It’s a good working relationship,” said Broussard. “We don’t refuse each other anything which definitely makes it easy. We make suggestions to each other about things.”
The collaboration works so well probably because the two men have known each other since they shared a first grade class as students in Lafayette.
“The process has never failed,” Broussard said.
Ancelet agrees.
“We have never had one moment of serious disagreement about anything,” said Ancelet. “It’s the easiest thing, ever. Now he’ll say, ‘I think you’re missing something here.’ Or, ‘We need to hit this harder or come up with a hook.’
“We do that kind of stuff,” he said. “We have this great relationship that is extremely productive and creative and respectful.
“When this process is working at its best, when it’s hitting on all eight cylinders, what it does is it uses the past to construct something new,” Ancelet said. “It’s not prisoner to the past. It’s using the past as a deep, rich resource.”
“Blacker Than the Devil’s Feet” is a line in a couple of the songs on the album.
Still, not all is dark on the upcoming release, Ancelet said with a caveat.
“It’s got some light moments, too,” Ancelet said. “But an album that’s going to be entitled ‘Blacker Than the Devil’s Feet’ – it’s going to have some blues, man.”
The songs “weren’t written to order,” said Broussard. “It’s just from his body of work, some of which is published, some has not been.”
Broussard said the duo is “pretty far” along in the process for the album.
“About 80 percent,” he said. “We have twice as many songs as we need and we have a lot of recording to do from other musicians.”
Under current pandemic circumstances, that process is down the road.
“I don’t know how to arrange it. I can’t afford to get sick from the virus, so I’m not really sure how we’re going to do that,” said Broussard. “Meanwhile, I’m playing everything, but that’s not the ideal.”
A long pause.
“Let’s just say that’s hardly the ideal,” he chuckled. “I did it the first time (on ‘Broken Promise Land’).”
Broussard said he plans to call on “our usual suspects” who are musicians from the annual Gospel Brunch at Ancelet’s house, such as Gina Forsyth and David Greely, in addition to some other local players.
“And we’ll need real drums and percussion and a few other singers,” Broussard said, adding that he and Ancelet will “be singing most of it.”
Anna Laura Edmiston was a guest vocalist first time around and featured on “Coeur casse.” “We will probably have some women singing on this one,” said Broussard. “Barry enjoys hearing certain poems of his sung by a woman.
“Sometimes a poignant poem can be more so if you change the gender – a point of view,” he said.
Broussard said he and Ancelet are still culling the herd of songs.
“We haven’t decided what songs will make the cut. They haven’t been in good enough shape to listen to,” Broussard said. “That will happen when I make the songs listenable enough. “
In other words: “I’m fleshing the songs out from the bare bones state that they were in,” he said.
“I would much prefer to work with him face to face. And also I need him to sing,” said Broussard. “It’s not as much fun this way. We have a great working relationship and I miss it.”
The upcoming release, like the previous one, isn’t what one would call Cajun music in the way, say, Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys (of which Broussard is a member) may play.
“The way I look at it for myself, there’s two kinds of Cajun musicians,” said Broussard. “There’s the kind that pretty much plays Cajun music most of the time. And then there are musicians who are Cajun.
“We’re just doing what we want,” he said. “And, in that, we have a lot in common with the old guard of Cajun musicians. They certainly did whatever they wanted to do.”
Another pause and the pachyderm in the room raised its trunk regarding gigs since the pandemic was finally acknowledged in this country in March.
“We lost all of them,” said Broussard. That would include Strawberry Park Festival, Rhythm and Roots, the Lincoln Center, Balfa Camp and lots of other festivals and gigs. “These are gigs that other Louisiana bands lost as well.”
All local touring bands and those who gig locally were in the same boat and everyone took a hit.
“Music has always had a low profit margin, except for the old style record company,” Broussard said. “So, you worry about which venues will have to shut down forever, like some restaurants have had to do.”
Lots of bands sell their recordings at shows, but if there are no shows, well…
“So, you can’t sell records, and often money from that goes to transportation expenses,” said Broussard. “But nobody’s flying and there’s no place to fly to because there’s no gig when you get there.”
And even back in the pre-pandemic era, profit on recorded music sales were minimal.
“The only way to make money with recordings is to perform, or get them licensed within movies or commercials,” Broussard said. “You don’t make money selling records anymore unless you have sole ownership of them.”
All good things must end, and, so, too, all bad things. Right?
The day will dawn when social distancing and masks and ventilators follow the pandemic out of town and live music safely returns.
“I think it will be healthy when it cranks back up. I think it’ll be really good because audiences will have a renewed appreciation,” said Broussard. “But to me, the words, ‘crank back up,’ that means a vaccine. A vaccine is what it’s all about.”
Then again, there’s the bleach and ultraviolet light cure as proposed by a certain U.S. president.
“There’s that,” Broussard said. “Swallow an ultraviolet light bulb and then chase it with bleach.”
