Professional Documents
Culture Documents
© Jillian Johnson
C
hris Segura held up the CD booklet from thinking of us as these kids and recognize who we are
the first album by his band Feufollet (“FOH- today.”
fuh-lay”). The cover of the 1999 recording, The fiddler’s frustration was understandable. How would
La Bande Feufollet, was a photo of two you like your junior-high photos to be forever associated with
young girls and four young boys looking your professional career? Because so many Cajun-music fans
sheepish as they cradled their seemingly gigantic adult first encountered Feufollet as an irresistibly cute, talented-
instruments on the wooden porch of an old Cajun house. for-their-age group of youngsters, that’s how those fans still
They looked like what they were: a bunch of kids, ages 9- think of them. It has been an uphill struggle for the musi-
14, with the baby-fat cheeks, buck teeth and ill-pro- cians to convince listeners that they’re now adults in their
portioned bodies of that awkward growing stage. early 20s who just made an album, Cow Island Hop,
They were already prodigies on their instruments, that deserved its 2009 Grammy nomination for Best
but most of them had yet to go through puberty. Zydeco or Cajun Music Album (even if they lost to
Segura, now 24, waved the CD booklet at an Beausoleil).
interviewer and declared, “Sometimes I wish I “The challenge is to get away from being thought
could get rid of all these, so people would stop of as the Cajun Menudo,” lamented guitarist Josh
© David Simpson
Leaf Boys’. We don’t want
to be the prodigy kids; we
just want to be regarded as
a good Cajun band. I think
that’s finally changing with
Cow Island Hop.” On the other hand, Feufollet wouldn’t be the accomplished
“It seems impossible for them to shake off the reputation as band it is today if it hadn’t gotten such a big head start in the
‘cute little kids,’” added Joel Savoy, head of Valcour Records, business. By beginning so young, and by playing so many
the label that released Cow Island Hop. “And yet, there is noth- professional gigs as teenagers, the band members gained not
ing childish about them. In fact, as a band, they are more ma- only a proficiency on their instruments but also a command
ture musically than almost any group in Southwest Louisiana of Cajun music’s tradition and possibilities ... a command
at this time. A lot of the popular music I hear on Cajun radio that most musicians don’t acquire till their 30s. In other
stations is the most mindless, poor-quality schlock performed words, that 1999 album represents not just their biggest ob-
by young folks without any sense of responsibility as ambassa- stacle but their greatest advantage, too.
dors of our culture. Call them what you want, but the music “Because they were already playing in the ’90s, Feufollet
Feufollet is making is the stuff that’s going to be remembered.” was exposed to a lot of the old masters while they were still
© David Simpson
Creole, the new band headed up by ex-Pine Leaf Boy materialized at breakfast time on a lonely stretch of high-
Cedric Watson. Chris Segura also plays with the Lafayette way between Eunice and Savoy, Louisiana. Most of them
Rhythm Devils featuring Blake Miller, Randy Vidrine and were wearing traditional Cajun Mardi Gras costumes: the
Yvette Landry. Philippe Billeaudeaux plays with the rock tall, cloth-wrapped conical hats, the painted window-screen
’n’ roll band the Amazing Nuns, while Edmiston collabo- masks with the funny noses, the brightly colored shirts and
rates with traditional ballad singer Marce LaCouture. pants, and the sewn-on cloth fringe that fluttered in the morn-
The sheer number and variety of these projects is a ing breeze.
reflection of the musicians’ wide-ranging interests. In- Chris Stafford, his mother, Joel Savoy, his mother and
evitably those experiences seep back into Feufollet it- Philippe Billeaudeaux all found seats in one of the tractor-
self, adding the modernist touches that make Cow Island pulled wagons, where a shifting roster of musicians played
Hop such a Janus-faced project: looking toward the fu- non-stop, unamplified Cajun music for the next five hours.
ture even as it looks back at the past. Some of the paraders rode horses; some rode wagons, and
“It’s only logical that we develop Cajun music the same way most walked. The long line of brightly costumed revelers
that D.L. Menard and the Hackberry Ramblers did,” Stafford began on a two-lane blacktop, traveled through sugar-cane
declared. “When they took country songs and translated them fields onto a gravel road and finally followed tractor tracks
into French, they were doing something that hadn’t been done through a farmer’s meadows, far from the nearest conve-
before. It was all about listening to the music around you and nience store.
making it a part of what you already do. It’s the same thing This led to a small cemetery, where one of the grave-
when we take an old song like ‘Prends Courage’ and add a stones read: “Dennis McGee / Jan 26, 1893 / Oct 3, 1989.”
garage-rock Vox organ to it and all those ‘la la la’s’ at the end.” McGee, of course, was one of the founding fathers of Cajun
“A lot of people can’t accept that Cajun music is not, music. His 1929-1934 recordings with Amede Ardoin and
and never has been, a defined sound,” argued Joel Savoy. Sady Courville not only supplied the genre with its core
“People take a snapshot of the culture at some point in repertoire but also defined the essential sound.
its history and use that to define it. Like everything else, On this late afternoon, with a chilly breeze ruffling the
as the music gets older, it changes. It develops and takes red fringe on Chris Stafford’s black costume and the yellow
on the personality of its circumstances. Feufollet is bridg- fringe on Joel Savoy’s red costume, the two fiddlers stood
ing the gap between our culture and the enigmatic Ameri- beside the grave and played McGee’s “Chere Bebe Creole.”
can youth scene and they’re doing it well, with good taste It was the same tune Feufollet had reinvented with Beatlesque
and foresight. They’re leading instead of following, and touches on their new album, but now the musicians played
I think that should be applauded.” it slowly, simply and elegantly. As the large circle of silent
celebrants looked on, the musicians pressed their bows
Ne pleurez pas ma belle, je vous la rendrai (2x) Like borrowed money ...
Je vous la rendrai sur le bord de l’ile
Je vous la rendrai sur le bord de l’eau
Sur le bord d’un vaisseau