LAFAYETTE, LA — When Tommy Comeaux died tragically in November 1997, the music community rallied around the fallen musician and pathologist and sought a way to honor his life.
And, as tradition has it here, the effort to raise funds was centered around music, which was done with annual Medicine Shows. It was the right thing to do for many reasons, but especially because Comeaux, a renowned multi-instrumentalist, had played with BeauSoleil, Basin Brothers, Coteau, the Clickin’ Chickens and others.
Come Friday, April 22, 2022, 7 p.m., the 16th in a series of these evenings is set for Angelle Hall, St. Mary Boulevard and McKinley Street, on the UL campus.
Opening the show will student bands, the Angelle Aces (Cajun), Ragin’ Steppers (zydeco), Saint Street Songsters (string band), Ragin’ & Blues Band (R&B), and Vermilion Express (bluegrass).
General admission to Medicine Show 2022 is $10.00 (free with UL I.D.); and $25.00, which includes admission to a post-show reception honoring the performers, as well as Mark DeWitt, Professor of Music, who was chosen for the inaugural position a dozen years ago and who is retiring this year. Advance tickets available here.
“I did the best I could to move slowly, at first, to get the lay of the land and to see where the demand was and where the low hanging fruit were in terms of what students wanted and what resources we had in the community which turns out we had a lot,” said DeWitt, who relocated from California to Louisiana for the position.
“We were going to do more than Cajun and Creole music all along. Although I feel strongly that that needs to be the core of the program.”
Mark DeWitt, Professor of Music, Dr. Tommy Comeaux Endowed Chair in Traditional Music
The community resources were abundant and skilled and anxious to get to work and they all figured out the course together.
“The amount of musicians in the community who are so good at what they do and also interested in working in a university environment even if they had never done so before,” he said. “Some of them who hadn’t even gone to college themselves. It was cool.
“We kind of learned as we went. We learned things like teaching fiddle and accordion at one of those summer camps, which is like a one-week camp — as opposed to doing it for 15 weeks — it’s a whole different thing.
“There’s just more time to teach things. You can do it in a different order and do it in a different way,” he said. “So we learned some of that stuff together.”
The first course was Cajun music, something DeWitt was familiar with.
“So I started with Cajun music because that was my interest when I came here, and it also seemed like an obvious thing to start with,” said DeWitt. “And then we also found out there’s also student interest in other types of music too.”
“So we we added bluegrass and that was real popular for a while,” he said. “One of the things I also learned was that the students like something that’s new. So they go for the new thing and then it’s not so new anymore and then you have to do a little more persuading.
After Cajun music came bluegrass “and then we added zydeco band and then some blues and it just kind of grew over time. And now it’s all I can keep up with, it’s about as much a one person can do,” said DeWitt. “So I feel like it’s a good time to hand it over to the next person, whoever that turns out to be. I’ll do my best to share with them tips or secrets or things to remember.”
“We were going to do more than Cajun and Creole music all along,” he said. “Although I feel strongly that that needs to be the core of the program.”
While it was a new program at UL, DeWitt knew it was no secret how the area’s traditional music had kept going all these years and he responded accordingly.
“I knew pretty well we weren’t going to lead with music theory,” he said. “People learn music by ear, right? They learn by hanging out with other people and jam sessions are a relatively recent thing in Cajun music, but it’s still a way for folks to get some reps and get the music in their ear which is really important.
“I knew that going in that music theory was something to teach second, not first,” he said, adding, “or second or third.”
“We have a few traditional music majors, but it hasn’t been as popular a major as I would’ve liked. But then there’s always hope for the future on that,” said DeWitt. “Nonetheless, we’ve had a few and I had taught them a music theory class that was kind of tailored toward traditional music as part of their major.
“And they also got to learn how to read music a little bit in the same classes that the music business majors take, keyboard musicianship classes and so they get exposed to it, but it’s not like a prerequisite coming in. It’s not like they’re getting a sight reading test and they’re auditioning.”
DeWitt returns to California in June and he’s grateful for the opportunity the Comeaux Chair afforded him and all that came with living in South Louisiana.
“I certainly got to meet a lot of great musicians and work with them. Some of those were students, too,” DeWitt said. “But, certainly, the faculty we had and just the chance to actually live here in the middle of all this great music and kind of experience how it all fits together.”
DeWitt, an ethnomusicologist, paused, then continued.
“I’m not sure I can put it into words, even, how the cultural environment that nurtures the whole musical scene here is really interesting to be a part of and try to understand,” he said. “I’m still not sure I could really explain it, but I’m a lot closer than if I never lived here.”
If Kennedy’s vote had been in the majority, Louisiana would’ve missed out on an incredible opportunity of improved roads and safe bridges for those who live here and not in Washington, D.C.
Kennedy didn’t just poke President Joe Biden in the eye. Nor did he only put it to the Libs.
Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R) apparently is not aware that registered Republican voters also drive these same roads and over the very same bridges.
In no small way, Sen. Kennedy told his constituents that they, too, are simply fodder and a contemptible means to his ends.
And it’s at those ends you’ll find his blind fealty to Donald Trump.
The Republican senator couldn’t even hold the former president accountable for his role in the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
“Other than being entertaining sometimes, he does very little for us,” Chambers said of the senator. “John Kennedy needs to be challenged by somebody who is not going to play with him.”
Chambers also said that this same somebody is one who need not “pretend that they care so much what the Democratic Establishment says that they cannot move people that are non-chronic voters to show up to vote.”
Chambers, a Baton Rouge native and social justice advocate running for the U.S. Senate, spoke to about 40 area residents Thursday, April 14, 2022, evening in downtown Lafayette at a gathering billed as Backyard Conversations with Gary Chambers.
Chambers motto is Do Good, Seek Justice. He’s been leading the fight for a better, more just Louisiana.
During his talk, in the Q&A that followed, and in general conversation, it’s readily apparent that Chambers also walks the walk.
“They talk about cannabis being a ‘gateway drug.’ I do think it’s a gateway drug — to better roads, better schools, better bridges and better opportunities for people.”
Gary Chambers
“When you look at where we are as a state, roads are not red or blue. Roads are not Democrat or Republican. Roads are for everybody, ok,” said Chambers. “And the man voted against the Infrastructure bill.”
Whether one is a fan of Biden or not, “At the end of the day, he had a plan that was going to bring $7B to Louisiana that was going to fix roads and bridges,” he said. “And (Kennedy) voted against it.
“I promise you, you will not agree with everything that I do if I’m your U.S. Senator,” Chambers continued. “But you will not have a problem with me voting for roads and bridges. That just doesn’t make sense and I don’t think that it makes sense to most of us.”
“I believe that where we are as a country is a very tricky place and that if we are not careful, our children will inherit a world that is much less democratic, or democracy is much less abounding for our children than it is today,” said Chambers. “There are people that are working in every corner of this country — from Ohio to Georgia, to here — to restrict people from access to the ballot.”
“Black people make up 34 percent of the state of Louisiana,” he said. “But there’s one Black congressional district for this state.”
The contender said the issue matters because “that means there’s one Democratic congressional seat for this state. There’s one democrat going to D.C. to fight for all the other democrats in this state — not just black people — but people who want to see our state have a fighting chance.”
Louisiana goes to the polls in November where along with Chambers, two other Democrats, Luke Mixon and Syrita Steib, seek to unseat Kennedy.
In January, Chambers rocked the political world with an ad of him smoking a blunt in order to get a new conversation going about marijuana, and, “how do you get people to pay attention to what’s happening in Louisiana without a little bit of ‘shock & awe.’”
Chambers wants to get the word out on the injustices that has befallen many people who smoke pot, the business potential, tax revenue and related industry in direct relation to the plant.
“But talking about the data, a man named Kevin Allen, right now, in this state, is sitting in Angola Penitentiary serving a life sentence,” said Chambers. “He has been there since 2013 for less than a blunt of weed.
“While, currently, Colorado, with the fourth-ranked education system in the country, is breaking records in tax revenue and sales, improving their infrastructure, improving their education system,” he said. “While Louisiana ranks 50th.”
Chambers said the state’s commitment to the oil and gas industry “like that’s the only jobs we can find in this state,” needs to be reexamined.
“The truth is, we’ve got a lot of land that we’re going to drive by,” he said. “Why can’t we get some agriculture going there and not just cannabis for recreational use, hemp, and all of the things that go along with this industry.
“You guys know that they build houses out of hemp, now? That they make clothes out of hemp? That this is not just about people smoking, this is about a product that can be used to create thousands of jobs.”
“So, yes, I smoked a blunt to make us have a conversation about the inequity that surrounds that issue and the opportunities that surround it,” said Chambers.
“They talk about cannabis being a ‘gateway drug.’ I do think it’s a gateway drug — to better roads, better schools, better bridges and better opportunities for people.”
U.S. Senate candidate Gary Chambers Jr. DCross/photo
Chambers reminded the crowd of the $2B deficit left to the state after Republican Bobby Jindal sat in the governor’s chair for two terms and what it took to right the state’s ship.
“We figured out how to tax the hell out of us to get the money out of the hole,” he said. “But the way we continue to make sure that this state doesn’t end up in that situation again is, we build a diversified, thriving economy.”
And to be able to do that means having everybody on the same page.
“That means that every partner in every branch of government has to be working together. You guys can imagine that John Bel and John Kennedy don’t work together too much. That doesn’t benefit our state. That doesn’t benefit working class people,” said Chambers.
A partner of the same party on the federal level is one way to make it happen.
“And so, I may be a little loud, I may be a little unorthodox, but I think that’s what’s going to win this election,” Chambers said. “I don’t think you beat Kennedy by running to the center and hoping that you get a bunch of Republicans to switch over.
“I think you run on the values of supporting a woman’s right to choose. I think you run on the values of providing green opportunities and new jobs in communities,” he said. “I think you run on the values of democracy and protecting the right to vote and you touch the percentages of people that don’t show up to vote.”
Getting people to the polls is key to victory, especially those who don’t vote, both registered and those who need to, but have not.
“(When) John Bel became governor, 50 percent of Black New Orleans did not go vote; 45 percent of Black Baton Rouge did not go vote. About the same in Shreveport,” said Chambers. “Kennedy was elected with 536,000 votes. There’re 900,000 registered Black voters and about 30 percent of White voters in this state who are going to vote Democratic when they go vote.
“The math is there. Also, there’s 1.2 million eligible Black voters in the state of Louisiana. So, there’s another 250-300,000 voters that are not registered that could be mobilized that agree with you and I on policy.
“I thought Build Back Better was a great plan. Do I think that there needs to be more in it, be more inclusive? Yeah. But I think that you don’t let perfect get in the way of good.”
Gary Chambers
Chambers has a theory why the Democratic Party have not pursued such voters in earnest.
“Real simple. The Party wants a centrist, the people don’t,” he said. “If we are going to change this state, we’ve got to be bold like other states have been. We have got to organize and raise resources. One of the things you’re going to find out in the next few days is that we’ve raised a lot of money in the first quarter.”
Money is paramount for victory in politics these days and Chambers said he and his team have been “been darting all over the country raising money to make this a national race so that we can have the resources to be competitive, but I can’t win without people like y’all.”
In addition to fund-raising, a successful political run requires organization and reaching out to voters.
“I’m one man and this is one team, but it’s going to take thousands of us organizing around the state and knocking on neighbor’s door and telling them the numbers so that they can know what’s possible.
“The reason people don’t go vote, or don’t participate in the process is simply because they don’t know their power; that nobody’s ever told them these are the numbers and it’s that simple.
“(Louisiana Governor) John Bel (Edwards) was elected with 700 and 40-something thousand votes; 450,000 of them were Black voters. Why (hasn’t) anyone told you that before now?
“Because they don’t want you to know that there’s another 500,000 of them that didn’t go vote. And that if we get those people to go vote, then all of our children end up living up in a more prosperous Louisiana, a more equitable Louisiana, a more diverse and inclusive Louisiana.
“And I think that that’s a Louisiana that gives all of our babies a future worth living,” he said. “I don’t want my daughter to leave Louisiana to live out her wildest dreams.”
“We have an opportunity to draw those people in, draw those jobs in, diversify the economy,” said Chambers. “But you’ve got to have a partner at the federal levels that says, ‘You know what, I want to go out and talk to people about what Louisiana really is and how we can bring people to the table.”
“A U.S. senator has the ability to hold up a president’s agenda, or advance it,” he said. “When we talk about the things that are important to us, the John Lewis Voting Rights, making sure that everybody can have access to the ballot — if you’ve got a senator that would do the same thing that they would to to leverage their vote to ensure that that would pass, you’d get it. Right?
“Now they’re leveraging their vote for things that are not beneficial to us.”
Chambers is a supporter of Biden’s Build Back Better plan that was stymied by the Arizona and West Virginia senators, both Democrats.
“I thought Build Back Better was a great plan. Do I think that there needs to be more in it, be more inclusive? Yeah,” he said. “But I think that you don’t let perfect get in the way of good.
“There was enough in that bill that would’ve touched working class people,” said Chambers. “That child earned income tax credit where people were getting $300 a month per child, that was helping bring people out of childhood poverty. That was helping eradicate poverty.”
Chambers said as a result of building stronger families, “we build stronger communities and we solve some of these problems in these communities,” he said.
“Everybody wants to talk about violence and all of the crime that happens in all of our communities,” said Chambers. “All the folks who think we can put more police on the ground to solve the problems — we have had a wave of mass policing that has produced nothing but mass incarceration.”
“Let’s talk about jobs and opportunity,” he said. “When we create more jobs and opportunities for people, then they aren’t left with choices that allow them to be in an environment that creates the violence that we see.”
ARNAUDVILLE, La. — Of course he was driving his car when we talked.
Dana Cooper, singer/songwriter, was heading to Arnaudville from Nashville for his 7:30 p.m., Wednesday, April 6, 2022, show at NuNu’s Arts & Culture Collective, 1510 Bayou Courtableau Hwy.
Local talent and singer/songwriter in her own right, Renée Reed, opens the program.
On site will be a culinary pop-up by Five Mile Café. Tickets are $20; door opens 5:30 p.m. Music at 7:30 p.m.
Cooper is touring behind the release of “I Can Face The Truth,” his latest of 29 recordings since he started his music career in 1973.
“I was kind of reflecting on that, you know, my life and my own faults and choices I’ve made in life and stuff,” said Cooper. “The funny thing is, is the chorus, ‘I can face the truth, but please not today.’ Human nature, you know, how we kind of put it all off ’til later.
“It’s not always easy to face up to all that stuff.”
Cooper started on the CD before the COVID pandemic, “but it took a couple of years to work on it because of COVID,” he said. “I started a few months before and then I went out on the road.
“I was out on the road on the West Coast when COVID really hit us full force,” said Cooper. “And I came home, and then we’re all isolated for seven, eight months and then we went back in occasionally, Dave Coleman and I, worked together with our masks on and built what we could out of it until we could actually safely get people in there again.
Like many singer/songwriters, Cooper is put in the Americana category. And, like his brethren, well, it is what it is.
“They kind of lump me in in with Americana, you know, but I really feel like I,” he paused, then continued. “As a songwriter, I’ve always kind of written all over the place.
“So I write things that are bluesy and country and folk and rock and pop and just whatever I want because I like all kinds of music,” said Cooper. “So I try to incorporate it all in what I’m doing.
“But, yeah, it’s Americana what I’m doing right now.”
When a song comes to Cooper it could be anytime, anywhere.
“I never know when they’re going to come. They show up pretty much unexpectedly when they happen, the ideas I get,” Cooper said. “It’s changed over the years. Pretty much everyday I come up with some kind of a rhythmic idea or a melody or a lyric and I’ll jot it down or hum it in in my recorder.
“I collect these ideas and then every week or so I kind of go back over what I’ve been coming up with and see if there’s anything worth pursuing,” he said. “Sometimes, I will just get an idea and I’ll have time to sit down and actually just start working on it right in the moment.
“That’s become rare these days. I’m busy doing so much traveling and ad man work on a computer and all, I don’t have as much creative time available as I would like.”
So, yeah, portable recording technology comes in handy for Cooper.
“I’ll get a lot of ideas on the road when I’m driving and that’s when I’ll just hum them or sing them into my recorder,” said Cooper. “And after gigs a lot of times, I’ll sit around for a while and play the guitar, come up with some ideas that way, too.
“But they can come from the guitar, from a music idea; they can be a rhythm idea,” he said. “That’s where most of my things start, from one or the other of those. And then I’ll start working on lyrics.”
While some of Cooper’s songs can comment on social or political issues, they’re not in your face tunes.
For instance, take the title song of his latest ‘Face the Truth’ release.
“That’s kind of reflective of the times we’re in, when it’s hard to know what the hell the truth is these days,” said Cooper. “That’s kind of one of the underlying themes in that song, without it really getting political or anything.”
Other songs, “Summer in America” and “Walls” said Cooper, are some of the more “topical songs” on the release.
“So, yeah, I tend to write about the things that concern me and I try to do it in a way that is not confrontational or divisive with people,” he said. “I like to maybe make people just kind of reconsider, sometimes, maybe their viewpoint.
“I try not to shove anything down people’s throat,” Cooper said. “I’ve found you don’t really get much anywhere that way.”
Cooper is rather familiar with Cajun music.
“Like I said earlier, I love all kinds of music and Cajun music has always fascinated me. I’ve listened to quite a bit of it,” he said. “I’m not any kind of an expert on it, but I do love it.
“I’ve leaned on that a little bit with some of my songwriting,” he said. “I’ve got a few things that were inspired by Cajun music.”
One of those songs is “Acadian Angel,” he wrote with Shake Russell.
“I’ll probably be playing a couple of those in my show,” he said. “Like I said, I’m kind of all over the place.”
Despite the the splash MTV made a splash on the music scene, Cooper keeps the music video in its place when it comes to songwriting.
“Not when I’m writing something usually. I mean it might occur to me that something might look cool some way visually,” he said. “But that’s usually after I’ve written a song and then I’ll consider what to do with it visually.”
Cooper said while most of his music vids are selfie videos, he calls on friends to help with the others, including “Bluebird,” which is on “I Can Face The Truth.”
“I’ll go out there and put it together the best I can,” he said of the selfies. “But I’ve worked with some friends, too, in Nashville. In ‘Bluebird’ (with Tom Kimmel), it was like, ‘Hey, this would be great, obviously, to have some aerial footage.’
So Cooper contacted friends in Texas who do just that and the Lone Star countryside, shot from above, is in the music video.
“I asked if they would contribute some stuff and gave them some ideas of what I was looking for,” said Cooper. “So they sent me a whole lot of aerial footage that I had to comb through and cull from.”
Cooper rarely tours with a band.
“I’ve been doing the solo thing for a while and economically and logistically, it’s just easier,” he said. “But I do occasionally. I’ll be playing in Nashville, I’m doing a show in May with a band there, some of the people who played on the album with me.”
And while on tour in Texas, “I’ll do a pick-up band down there sometimes because I know a lot of people there,” he said. “But it’s pretty much a solo show.”
“I Can Face The Truth” is charting on five radio charts. It ranked- #8 FAI Folk Chart Album, #8 Folk Chart Artist for February. It debuted on NACC Folk Chart at #17. Also on Alternative Country, Roots Music & Americana Charts.
“All these shows I’m doing right now are being billed as CD release shows,” he said. “I’ll do the songs off the new record, plus a collection of songs from my other 29 records.”
“I’ve been doing a lot for a long time,” said Cooper. “Some of (albums) were with other folks. I’ve played with a couple other people over the years, we put out records together. They weren’t all solo projects, but most of them are.”
Emily Neustrom brings her record release party to the Blue Moon Saloon, Saturday, April 2, 2022. submitted artwork
by Dominick Cross
LAFAYETTE, LA — The pandemic gets a lot of blame for a lot of things and nearly all of it deservedly negative.
There’s probably not another side to this COVID coin, you know, where some good would ordinarily be found, so perhaps one should zoom in along its edge.
And it’s here, during the past two years of downtime, that some people examined their lives, or looked at their own mortality, or even pursued a long-sought goal.
Emily Neustrom, a Lafayette native living in New Orleans, is all of those people.
“I’ve been dreaming of making a record for 20 years,” said Neustrom. “I think the pandemic made us all question our lives and death and what do we want to do and what haven’t we done.”
This thought pattern resulted in Neustrom’s debut CD, “No More Jambalaya,” a solo effort and genre-bending recording that’ll make its Lafayette debut Saturday, April 2, 2022, at the Blue Moon Saloon, 215 E. Convent St.
“And so, for me,” Neustrom said. “This was the biggest thing I wanted to make sure I did before I died.”
The lively program gets underway at 7:30 p.m., and features, in order of appearance: Band Practice, Yates Webb, Neustrom and Pinecone Brothers.
Neustrom’s all-original release does not neatly fit into any particular music category.
“It doesn’t matter to me, but apparently the Internet wants you to define it,” said Neustrom, addressing the issue as only she can. “I did put non-binary country. But I don’t even consider myself country. Maybe non-binary Americana. I don’t know.
“Sometimes I describe myself as singer/songwriter, sometimes it’s like country/folk, or just straight up folk,” she said. “Some of songs, to me, feel more like indie pop.
“So, it’s kind of a combo,” said Neustrom. “If Americana is a catch-all, then that’s fine.”
No matter the style of music, the subject matter of the songs will be familiar.
“I would say they range from death to dancing to love, or ex-boyfriends or something,” Neustrom said. “The name of the album is ‘No More Jambalaya,’ a feminist rant, or just a song for the ladies.”
‘When you share your own story, whether it’s heartbreak or joy, I feel like that’s what people connect to. It’s stories that are true to me.’
Emily Neustrom
While the pandemic may have spurred Neustrom to take care of business and get the recording out, she also got a nudge from her Swedish heritage.
Neustrom said the release of the album is a part of the “Swedish Death Cleaning of my soul,” she said.
“Swedish Death Cleaning is you live and keep your house and your things with death in mind,” said Neustrom. “So, imagining someone is going to come into your house after you die and have to deal with all of your shit. So it would be better if you just deal with your shit before you die.
“That’s what I’m trying to do on a soul level,” she said.
And the outcome?
“I feel amazing. It’s so liberating. It’s so scary, but it’s so liberating,” Neustrom said. “For me, it was like a weight on my heart and mind not having put my songs on an album to share with people publicly. So, this debut record is accomplishing my goal of sharing myself.”
While she shares herself through her songs, they story they tell should be familiar to everyone.
“When you share your own story, whether it’s heartbreak or joy, I feel like that’s what people connect to. It’s stories that are true to me,” said Neustrom. “There all either happy times or sad times. It’s just life.
“So for me, it’s sharing my stories through song and I hope people resonate with the emotions and feel comfort maybe by connecting through music and hearing someone else’s story.
“I think it makes us feel less alone,” she said. “That would be my goal if someone can feel less lonely.”
The CD was recorded at Chad Viator’s home studio and where Neustrom recorded demos over the years.
“Chad Viator is so talented and thoughtful as a producer. In the studio, you can make things sound ways that really bring them to life in a new way,” said Neustrom. “I showed up with just my guitar, lyrics and melodies. I mean, songs that I had written and were complete, and some were not complete and we finished in the studio.
“He just was able to add a lot of emotion and support the lyrics and the sentiment of a lot of songs,” she said, referring to the production and arrangements and instrumentation or ornamentation of the songs.
Neustrom had one word for Lamson’s contributions on drums and vocal harmonies.
“Incredible,” said Neustrom, who also gave a shout-out to “my old college roommate and Swampblossoms bandmate, Marie-Isabelle Pautz.
“I had a blast making this record with friends that I love and who are so supportive and that makes all the difference in the world,” she said. “It was a beautiful experience.”
Neustrom has enough songs written for a second release. But she’s got plans in the meantime.
“I’m going to start gigging more in New Orleans and Lafayette,” she said. “I’d like to play a bunch locally in Louisiana and get to know Louisiana dancehalls in that way.
“I’d love to go on a tour,” added Neustrom. “But you kind of need to be better known, or partner with other local bands.”
Bruce and I first connected and started hanging out in the early ’70s when he was playing with the band Rufus Jagneaux. They had burst on to the local scene like a force of nature with their big hit, “Opelousas Sostan,” and were playing everywhere.
Those were fun and formative times for a lot of musicians, artists and friends, and Bruce and I were right in the middle of it all with our mutual bands like a gathering tribe. Though he and I never officially formed a group, we sure jammed a lot, played gigs together and encouraged each other with equal parts admiration, sympathy and humor.
There was a lot of creativity in the air back then, and that required some trial and error on a regular basis. I honestly don’t remember whose idea it was, but I once traded a brand new Fender Twin Reverb combo to him for his older, ’60s Blackface Bassman amp head. Now, of course, it’s well known that his amp is a highly coveted model that is still sought after by players and collectors alike. Back then? Not a clue. I just knew it was the best sounding amp I’d ever played.
But after only a few days, Bruce called in a panic and asked if we could reverse the swap so that he could get his amp back.
It was kinda sweet, really, because it made me realize how much it meant to him, and I knew why. I said, “Sure, man, it’s still really your amp and always will be.” And it was true. He played his red Gibson 335 through that Bassman from then on and had his sound that only he could get.
In fact, some of my favorite memories of playing music are of Bruce onstage and on fire. Eyes closed, not so much as a glance at the fretboard, he would become transfixed and totally in the moment, pouring his heart into every single note. It seemed like a sudden force was at his back hurtling him through space. It was a joy to behold and to hear, and I’ll never forget that feeling.
Soar on, brother. The tribe will miss you greatly.
Sonny Landreth, Louisiana singer, composer and renown musician known for his slide guitar playing and advanced technique. Landreth and fellow guitarist, Bruce MacDonald, go way back. MacDonald died March 27, 2022.
Bruce MacDonald, left, with Roger Kash. Olivia Perillo/photo
by Roger Kash
My dear friend and musical compadre, the inimitable Bruce “Weasel” MacDonald, soulful guitar slinger and Louisiana musical legend caught the bus to the great beyond this morning (Sunday, March 27, 2022) after a long and protracted illness.
He was a musical force in both Lafayette and New Orleans and will be dearly missed by all who had the pleasure of sharing the stage with him.
I had the pleasure of being his band mate in the Cat Head Biscuit Boys for over 10 years. He taught me so much and encouraged me to sing when I didn’t even know I had a voice.
I’d seen him wipe the stage with guitar players who were much more famous than he…he played with such a fierceness and tons of soul, wrote great songs….most of all, he was a great pal and I’ll miss him dearly. He was so unique, there’ll never be another quite like him. Thanks buddy for all the laughs and inspiration. Love ya to the moon and back.
Roger Kash, musician/Freetown Radio program host on KRVS/88.7 FM, played with Bruce MacDonald in the band Cat Head Biscuit Boys.Kash granted Bayou Hack Press permission to use his facebook post about Bruce MacDonald.
There won’t be a funeral, so you’ll not find his body in a casket or his ashes in an urn because MacDonald donated his body to science.
But what you will find is a grand event, organized by guitarist Tommy Shreve, set for 7 p.m., April 20, 2022, entitled “Lafayette Musicians Unite for a Brother, A Memorial Benefit for Bruce MacDonald,” at Warehouse 535, 535 Garfield St., Lafayette.
“This guy has contributed so much musically,” said Danny Kimball, drummer/percussionist and lifelong friend of MacDonald. “To think about Lafayette music if he hadn’t been here, there’d probably no Rufus, no Coteau, not mention all of the other bands.
“He moved the music itself forward in this area,” he said. “I mean, Coteau changed Cajun music.”
Kimball chuckled when he recalled MacDonald’s take on Cajun music.
“Bruce said, ‘It’s just folk music that’s there to be jacked-around with.’”
MacDonald also had an impact on the New Orleans music scene “with George Porter, the Song Dogs — I mean, he was working in rare air over there — Weasel was respected as a player,” said Kimball.
Kimball said MacDonald, whose day job was a house painter, hadn’t worked in some time because of poor health.
That said, in addition to the April celebration of MacDonald’s life, an online fundraiser at GoFundMe was established by Kimball and Rhonda Egan under the medical, illness and healing category before he died.
Getting MacDonald on board took a some coaxing, according to Kimball.
“I knew he was going to give me every excuse in the world not to do it,” said Kimball. “That’s how he is. I said, ‘Bruce, this is something we need to do for you and we need to do for us.
“‘We’re going to have to let you go and it is not going to be easy for a lot of people in this town. And that’s when he looked at me and said, ‘Okay. I just want you to take care of Julie and take care of my boy. Make sure they’re ok.’
‘He moved the music itself forward in this area. ‘I mean, Coteau changed Cajun music.’
Danny Kimball
“And I said that’s what this money is going to be for,” said Kimball. “We’re going to make sure that she’s okay as she makes the transition to the next phase of her life.”
Julie is Julie Marshall. She and MacDonald were longtime friends before their friendship took a romantic turn and they ended up sharing a home for 20 years.
Although MacDonald and Marshall had disability incomes, “half of that left yesterday,” Kimball said Monday.
a/k/a Weasel
Going back to his teen days, MacDonald was tagged with the nickname Weasel.
“Bruce, what a character. He’s like a caricature or something, you know. It’s like you can’t create this guy. And everybody knows him in Lake Charles as Weasel — from his character.”
Bruce MacDonald Robin May/photo
MacDonald’s mother “got on me about it,” Kimball remembered. “She goes, ‘Danny. I didn’t named Bruce ‘Weasel,’ I named him Bruce.’ And I go, “‘Ok, Mrs. Weasel.’ And she put her head in her hands. She was a doll. Oh, God. Mary Ellen was so special.”
It was about a decade or more ago when MacDonald preferred his given name to his nickname.
“He was kind of tired of it,” said Kimball.
Homeboys
Kimball and MacDonald go back to their days at LaGrange High School in Lake Charles. That, coupled with the fact that they would play in bands together for nearly as long, gives the drummer keen insight into the guitar player.
“Off and on forever. Yeah, he’s family,” said Kimball. “He’s like a brother to me.”
Brotherly love, however, wasn’t in the cards at their first encounter as high school sophomores. An early version of The Bad Roads was playing a house when MacDonald and two others arrived.
“I didn’t know these people,” said Kimball, watching it all unfold behind the drum kit. “They were drunk on their ass.”
MacDonald repeatedly shouted out a request to the band.
“‘Hey, mother fuckers, play Beach Boys,’” Kimball recollected. “He wanted to hear Beach Boy songs and he was obnoxious.”
The band insisted that the rowdy trio leave the party and they left.
Three weeks later at a Lake Charles hangout, the two met again.
“Somehow, I ran into Weasel again. I’d lost my ride and I was stranded there,” said Kimball. “Bruce gave me a ride home. He was in his dad’s car. Somehow we, I forget the exact deal, but the night he gave me a ride home, he scared me to fucking death.
“He was drunk on his ass. He was going down Enterprise Boulevard about 60 mph, running stop signs. It was raining,” he continued. “And when I finally got him to my parent’s house, which was on the way to his house, I got out, closed the door and he peels out.
“I swear to God, I fell on my knees in the ditch and thanked God I’m alive,” said Kimball. “And I never wanted to see that mother fucker again.
“Of course, the next week, I was over at his house,” laughed Kimball. “I fell in love with his mother. And we just started hanging out together with his little crew.”
Guitar curious
MacDonald was learning to play guitar at the time.
“He had this thing called the Color Way,” Kimball said, where the novice picker put little color-coded stick-ems on their fingers that coincide with the chords in the book.
Briant Smith and Terry Green, two guitarists in The Bad Roads, also started hanging around and they told MacDonald to ditch that method “and started showing him how to play,” said Kimball. “He was just starting to pick it up.”
Megan Barra/poster
MacDonald then became a roadie for The Bad Roads.
“And he was the worst roadie in the world,” Kimball said. “We paid him $25 a night to move the equipment. So what he would do is find some yo-yo that knew a little bit about the equipment and pay him $10 and he’d take the $15 and go buy beer. But he could solder really well.
“And if I demonstrate how he soldered, it was a physical thing how his elbows were out when he soldered, you’ll die laughing,” he said. “It was just amazing. He was such a character. We were all characters, bopping around playing music.”
Eventually, Green left the band and Smith took over lead and MacDonald played rhythm.
“He’d been learning how to play the whole time,” said Kimball. “And wanted to learn how to play so he could play Beach Boy songs.”
San Francisco
Kimball was the first of his friends to head out to San Francisco in 1968 and a few months later, MacDonald and Benny Graeff showed up, “because I was out there and said, ‘Man, y’all gotta come out here and check this out.’”
MacDonald was taken by Santana, who hadn’t even released an album yet.
“And then he saw the (Grateful) Dead. He, like, picked up the vibe, the whole thing,” said Kimball, who told his friend to wait until he sees the Sons of Champlin, “one of the top bands in San Francisco. They could give a shit about, ‘making it.’”
Kimball recalled an interview with Jerry Garcia (Grateful Dead) in which the musician was asked who he thought was the best guitarist in the Bay Area and he replied, Terry Haggerty, a guitar player with Sons of Champlin.
“He was a monster,” said Kimball.
MacDonald, at the time, “wasn’t the player we have now. Bruce was fumbling around, but he synthesized those guys,” Kimball said. “That’s where he went and started working from and all that later on came out through him.”
MacDonald, Breaux & Zach
Kimball called “Migration,” Zachary Richard’s “big breakthrough album” in Canada in 1978. MacDonald and Dana Breaux were on guitars.
“It was basically Coteau and Zachary’s songs, as far as I’m concerned,” said Kimball. “Tells you Zachary’s really smart. ‘Migration’ broke him in Canada big time.”
The two guitarists had a unique working relationship and style.
“(MacDonald and Breaux) had all of these dual harmony things going on that were really amazing. Nobody was doing anything like that, having the patience to work all that kind of stuff out and push it the way they did rhythmically,” said Kimball.
Kimball explained:
“Dana and Bruce each had a guitar. A lot of the time they played on different sides of the stage. Bruce would run his extension speaker over to Dana’s amp, so it was sitting right there and Dana’s extension speaker was over on Bruce’s side.
“So they were like immersed in those two guitars. It was weird, it was fascinating,” he said.
In other words, the guitarists could hear what the other was playing and respond at the same time, merging the two guitars into one sound.
“The way they were so in tuned to each other they could pull off those ongoing rides together, harmonic rides and stuff,” said Kimball. “It wasn’t like everybody was trying to shred. It wasn’t about that. It was all these beautiful, melodic things and the rhythm was Cajun rhythms; shuffles and two-steps and everything.”
Reference point
Kimball said MacDonald’s performance at the Medicine Show 2 fundraiser for The Dr. Tommy Comeaux Endowed Chair in Traditional Music at UL Lafayette (captured on the Medicine Show 2 CD, recorded live at Grant Street Dancehall), is a classic example of his guitar skills.
Da Beans, with Kimball on drums, played that night.
“We didn’t have (Tommy) Shreve, he couldn’t make it and (Steve) LeCroix couldn’t make it, he was in Cape Cod,” said Kimball of the line-up that did consist of Gary Newman, bass; Sam Broussard and MacDonald on guitars, Pat Breaux, sax/accordion, Tommy Withrow, piano, and Mike Hanisee, guitars/vocals.
“I think we rehearsed for an hour,” said Kimball. “Our contribution on that CD is a medley of two songs, ‘We Been Runnin’ and ‘The Cuckoo’.
“We went through the set and everything’s going good and then we get into this thing and those two mother fuckers erupted. They just took the fuck over,” Kimball said. “There’s just four guitar rides, two on ‘Runnin’ and two on ‘Cuckoo.’ They both played absolutely brilliantly. “Bruce had the last run and he ripped the roof off of the fuckin’ place. The roar at the end of that, when we stopped that song, the roar that came off the crowd — they were stunned,” he said. “We were stunned.”
“I listen to it periodically and I still get chills from what he did, and the whole band. But what Bruce did.” A quick pause, and then he continued. “Sam played Sam to the max. And they kind of pushed each other a little bit, you know? And it’s magic. Pure fuckin’ magic.
“So,” Kimball added. “If you want a reference point on Bruce MacDonald’s playing, go to that and listen to the breadth of the chops that that man had.”
Celebration
No different than a New Orleans Jazz Funeral, the celebration of MacDonald, April 20th at the Warehouse, will be just that: a rollicking remembrance of a friend, father and helluva guitar player.
“I don’t see it as mourning a death so much as celebrating a life,” said Kimball. “And what better way to celebrate a musician’s life than to just play some music.”
Kimball expects “a pretty seamless deal. We’re making a CD of recordings that Bruce played on, a lot of songs that he played and sang his songs,” he said. “So we’ll have that swirling around between bands.
“It’s a night of reminiscing, it’s a night of memories and the tribe getting together again like the Medicine Shows where you had to be there because you wanted to see everybody,” he said.
“We’ll just celebrate his life and hopefully people will keep him in their hearts and their minds,” Kimball said. “And hopefully, with all that music he created — there’s a lot of it out there — people will note that this guy was a great guy and a great player.”
After two years, Festivals Acadiens et Creoles returns to the familiar surrounds of Girard Park for a weekend celebration of Cajun and Creole cultures in music, food and arts and crafts.
Yee-the-hell-haw!
And yet, the pandemic that dropped in on the world in March 2020 and which appears to be ebbing in the U.S., is, sad to say, on the rise in Europe and China.
And if all goes the way it has the past two years, the U.S. will probably again get the COVID en masse.
So the never-ending roller coaster ride continues.
This is way past exhausting. It’s been way too long and it’s way past on my last nerve which may be found in the crumpled mask I last wore in public nine days ago. It’s on the floorboard, passenger side.
Goodness gracious, I’m so tired of the pandemic. I’m tired and saddened by the unnecessary sickness and death of friends and countless strangers.
I’m especially over the obtuse chunk of citizenry who’ve been misled about the virus (and the election and the insurrection) by cynical politicians and their ilk whose platform of misinformation is peddled by certain media outlets.
You may know of these people. The ones who couldn’t be bothered with the simple task of wearing a mask, or getting the vax for not only themselves, but also their fellow Americans. Medical exemptions duly noted.
And now these same people are riding around the country in a convoy protesting any and everything designed to help put this pandemic to bed.
If I may, WTF?!
And there’s also the fresh pain of the War on Ukraine and where it may lead. I’m not a masochist, so I’ll not go there.
I’m so sick of it all. I’m worn down and nearly out.
I, we, all of us need a break from the insanity and inanity of the past two years before all meaning is lost and tossed, not unlike a book pulled from our public library shelves by the self-righteous.
So just in time, a hero emerges in the form of this upcoming festival weekend and it’s right here and it’s right now and it’s knocking on our door.
With tears of joy, I swear I can hear Monte Hall exclaim as only he could: “Festivals Acadiens et Creoles! C’mon down!”
Ah, yes. A reprieve. A respite. A revival, even. A weekend where we’re all sure to see, converse, hug and dance with friends we haven’t seen in two years.
We can still be cautious without being paranoid; Festivals Acadiens et Creoles is held outdoors. And our hearts can still go out to Ukrainians without being on our sleeves.
Take this break we’re given and revel in it.
Monday and the woes of the world will be here soon enough.
The late Courtney Granger will be honored Saturday, March 19, 2022, 1 p.m. on Scène Ma Louisiane. DCross photo
By DOMINICK CROSS
LAFAYETTE — In this much needed pause between calamities — a waning pandemic and the possibility of WWIII — make the best of the opportunity to indulge in Festivals Acadiens et Creoles, this weekend (March 18-20, 2022) in Girard Park.
The springtime version of the festival that’s usually held in the fall marks the 48th running of the music, food, arts and crafts extravaganza celebrating the Cajun and Creole cultures. One doesn’t have to go back in history to recall that COVID-19 put a halt to life as we knew it this time of year in 2020, and the virus kept most of us off-balance through 2022.
Virtual festivals became the rule of thumb everywhere and got us by, like decaf coffee, until the real deal that’s about to go down in two days and upcoming months. So, bring on the caffeine, the great outdoors, dancing shoes and an appetite for food, fun and frolic in all of the usual ways. Almost.
“We’re celebrating finally getting back together again, live in the park,” said Barry Ancelet, president of the board of Festivals Acadiens et Creoles. “We want people to please be responsible. Let’s not get carried away, careless at this point to undo the good things that are happening.
“Hopefully, as many people as possible will be vaccinated and just be responsible in how we gather. If anybody feels sick or symptomatic of anything, really, not just COVID, but anything, you know, they’ll stay home.
“Let’s just be safe. Let’s be smart,” he said. “If you’re coughing or running a fever, stay home.”
Festivals Acadiens et Creoles will again return to its normal time in October — yep, we’re getting a two-for-one this year — sans hurricane, pandemic or another world war.
Ancelet said that the original event that became this festival was held in the spring in Blackham Coliseum. But there are no plans to return to this time of year on a regular basis.
“We’re going to have the festival in October,” Ancelet said. “This spring festival is to make up for the one we didn’t have last October. In October, we’re still dealing with hurricane season, but I think it’s become our home, become our time.”
While bad weather may be an issue, it should take place when we’re all tucked away for the night. As of Wednesday, there’s “the chance for some severe weather as the front moves through, which is expected to be in the early morning hours of Friday,” according to KATC Weather, noting that the weekend outlook is good.
Music to your ears
The festivals’ line-up includes the usual Grammy-noms and Grammy winners, standard bearers of years past, envelope pushers of the present, and new bands with familiar names.
There is a tribute to the late Courtney Granger, Saturday, March 19, 2022, 1 p.m., on Scène Ma Louisiane. Granger, who left us way too soon at 39 in September 2021 , played Cajun fiddle and Cajun sang with The Pine Leaf Boys and Balfa Toujours. He sat in with everybody and would make the hair on your neck stand up knocking off a country crooner classic. Granger released Beneath Still Waters in 2016 and if you order it now, you should have it in your collection by next week.
Over the weekend, there’s the golden opportunity to listen and dance to Sheryl Cormier & Cajun Sound, Chubby Carrier & the Bayou Swamp Band, Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys, Wayne Singleton & Same Ol’ 2 Step, Roddie Romero and the Hub City All-Stars, Geno Delafose & French Rockin’ Boogie, Bonsoir, Catin, Curley Taylor & Zydeco Trouble, Balfa Toujours, Joe Hall and the Louisiana Cane Cutters, Feufollet, Savoy Family Band, Cedrick Watson & Bijou Creole, Riley Family Band, The Potluck Band, Jesse Lege, Lil’ Nathan & the Zydeco Big Timers, Jourdan Thibodeaux et les Rodailleurs, Wayne Toups & ZydeCajun.
Chris Ardoin and NuStep Zydeco, opening night, Friday, March 18. DCross photo
The Bayou Food Festival will give you a taste of the Cajun and Creole cultures, and the Louisiana Crafts Fair artists and craftspeople will have their wares to marvel over and purchase.
Looking ahead
Ancelet said the board will meet in early April to plan the fall festival, in which the week of will coincide with an ethnomusicology conference in Lafayette.
“We’ve got some interesting plans for the next one,” he said. “None of this is in stone, but what we’re discussing right now is celebrating Louisiana as an international Francophone crossroads, examining the connections Louisiana has to the rest of the French speaking world.
“Part of that is going along with the likelihood that we’re going to have a major, international Francophone Ethnomusicology Conference in Lafayette the week of the festival in October,” Ancelet said, adding, “all of this is in the planning stages, but this is what we’re shooting for.”
Look for scholars and performers from the Francophone areas “that we’re examining to see the connections,” said Ancelet. “Not only to ponder them, but hear them.”
A similar ethnomusicology conference was held over Zoom last year.
Who knew?
As it happened, Mason had a major impact on Ancelet’s life during his collegiate years, and, as it so happens, anyone who has ever enjoyed Festival Acadiens et Creoles.
Mason came to Louisiana in the early 1970s “and met with and learned from and recorded with the Balfa Brothers, Nathan Abshire, the Ardoins — a lot of the founding members of that generation — so he’s very well connected and a long-time, not only fan of, but very knowledgable of Cajun music and zydeco.”
While in Nice, France, when Ancelet was on his academic year abroad in 1972-73, Mason was playing “Crowley Two-Step” in a coffee shop, “And it changed my life,” said Ancelet.
Ancelet introduced himself and said he was from Louisiana and that the song eased his homesickness.
“And he said, ‘You must know all of the people I learned from, Dewey Balfa, Nathan Abshire…,’ and I said, ‘I don’t know any of those people, but I need to know who they are.’”
Roddie Romero & the Hub City All Stars, Saturday, 3:45 pm, Scène Ma Louisiane. DCross photo
Mason told Ancelet that when he gets back home, go to Basile, get directions to Dewey Balfa’s house and introduce himself. So, in the summer of 1973, he knocked on Balfa’s door.
“I said, ‘Are you Dewey Balfa?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I am.’ I said, ‘I’m Barry Ancelet and I’m from here and I was in France and I met Roger Mason,” recalled Ancelet, who said in his nervousness, his response got faster and faster before Balfa urged him to slow down and invited him inside.
“I went in and that’s how I got involved in all of this,” Ancelet said. “And it was in part due to Roger Mason.”
LAFAYETTE — Conni Castille’s insightful documentaries are all about the culture where she was born and lives. For years now, Castille, Senior Instructor Moving Image Arts at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, has trained her insider eye on what most people may take for granted about the Cajun and Creole cultures in South Louisiana and put it out for all to watch, enjoy and, yes, get a better understanding of these peoples. From the ordinary task of ironing, there’s I Always Do My Collars First (2007), to tasty local staples and what it takes to put them on the table with Raised on Rice and Gravy (2009) and King Crawfish (2010); to a deep dive on the South Louisiana envie for its other favorite four-legged friends in T-Galop: A Louisiana Horse Story (2012). And now with The Quiet Cajuns: One Heritage. Two Generations. One Disease, comes the story of two generations of Acadian Usher Syndrome, which has sprinkled many family trees with deafblind aunts, uncles and cousins.
The Quiet Cajuns, Saturday, March 12, 2022, 5 p.m., Acadiana Center for the Arts, 101 West Vermilion, Downtown Lafayette, LA Free and Open to the Public
The subject of the documentary, Acadian Usher Syndrome (AUS), may seem a departure from previous documentaries of daily life, food and horses/horse racing in South Louisiana, but not so for Castille. “I don’t find it a departure at all. The DeafBlind Cajuns are merely a sub-culture of the Cajuns, a group I’ve always documented,” said Castille, who had not heard of AUS until then ULL biology professor, Phyllis Baudoin Griffard, brought it to her attention. “I learned there was a subculture of Cajuns who have never heard a fiddle waltz and who lose their vision because of a genetic quirk that came here with the Acadians. “It made me think there may be others like me who didn’t know that the largest population of DeafBlind Americans lives right here in Acadiana,” she said. Griffard, who has the Usher Syndrome gene variant in her family, launched OurBio, a curriculum/oral history project that explores how the biology of our region shapes the story of its people. “I initially contacted Conni because of her film, King Crawfish, a wonderful example of how I envisioned an OurBio project could work, teaching biology through local examples,” said Griffard. “Like our bayous and prairies, the genetics of Usher Syndrome presented an opportunity to tell a good story about ourselves.” Castille hopes the documentary can help the afflicted by making more people aware of AUS and what’s available to them. “First, I think the film may help in identifying more DeafBlind in our community, making them more aware of the services available to them, as well as offering an opportunity to connect to the larger DeafBlind community,” Castille said. “Second, the general Cajun population can learn about the disease through the film. Understanding more about one’s genetic history can always be beneficial. “Third, we will hand out greeting etiquette guiding anyone who may see or meet a Deaf or DeafBlind person,” she said. “This can encourage contact, making the seeing population more willing to visit with the Deaf or DeafBlind.” The usual suspects came together to make the documentary on a shoestring budget. “With little to no funding, I was fortunate to have the creative team I’ve worked with in my previous documentaries agree to help me with this passion project,” said Castille, with a nod to cinematographers Allison Bohl Dehart and Brian C. Miller Richard and others. “The cinematography is beautiful. Students in our UL Moving Image Arts film program helped produce the film by working as second camera units and in some post-production,” she said. “I had the pleasure of meeting and working with local editor, Trevor Navarre, for the first time. His total creative immersion in the project, and his attention to detail, added deep emotion to the script.”
The film is closed-captioned. Following the screening there will be Q&A session. Platform interpretation in American Sign Language will be provided.
