ALBUM REVIEWS - Une Tasse Cafe

Lafayette, LA Herman Fuselier, August 2006 Bayou Boogie: Ramblers, MJ Boys the same band - almost Will the real Mello Joy Boys please stand up? Wait, aren't these the same band members that make up the Lost Bayou Ramblers, too? But aren't Wilson Savoy and Jon Bertrand actually in the Pine Leaf Boys? You almost need a program to tell which musicians play in which bands. There's really no need for confusion. Even if it says Mello Joy on the CD label or dancehall marquee, you're still getting the Lost Bayou Ramblers."People will ask us, 'Is this y'all?' and we'll show them the little sticker that says Lost Bayou Ramblers ," said Louis Michot, fiddler and a founder of the Ramblers with his brother, Andre. “But the only place we perform as them (Mello Joy Boys) is the cafe (in Lafayette). "We play that same music during our Lost Bayou Ramblers sets. "(Mello Joy is) a concept album for us. Since the '20s and '30s, no one has made a pure Cajun swing album. A lot of bands have a little bit, but no one has done a full album. So we wanted to go for that." Fans can enjoy French and Cajun swing on the Lost Bayou Ramblers ' latest, Bayou Perdu. The Michot brothers, along with fellow Rambler Chris Courville and piano player Wilson Savoy of the Pine Leaf Boys, are part of the Mello Joy Boys and their debut CD, Une Tasse Cafe. The disc is sponsored by Mello Joy Coffee, which sells its brand at grocery stores and operates cafes and outlets throughout Lafayette. Both CDs feature young musicians performing the depression-era French music of their grandparents. Highlights from Bayou Perdu include Pine Island, North Louisiana Blues, Pilette High Society and two Hackberry Ramblers songs, Une Piastre Ice, Une Piastre La-Bas (A Dollar Here, A Dollar There) and Faut Pas Tu Brailles (Don't Cry). The Mello Joy Boys specialize the Cajun swing and string band style of the 1930s and '40s, when the accordion fell out of favor and local music adopted swing band rhythms of Texas with hints of New Orleans jazz. Tunes include the Mello Joy Boogie, based on Bill Nettles' Hadacol Boogie, Harry Choates' Devil on the Bayou and Steel Guitar Rag from Leon McAuliffe and the Texas Playboys. Louis Michot said the French and swing music reflect two sides of his family's heritage. "My dad and uncles play Cajun music," said Michot, son of Tommy Michot of Les Freres Michot. "My grandpa and them played swing music. "He was raised in Mamou and he moved to Lafayette when he was 12. His dad and all his brothers all played music like banjo and horns and piano. To us, it's almost a blending of both generations." Although the Mello Joy Boys have been limited to sparse café gigs, the Ramblers have lived up to their names with engagements from coast to coast. Last weekend's three-stop tour of Texas included a headline show at Austin's famed Continental Club, which has featured a variety of music greats since 1957. The band returns to the East Coast in September before playing the National Folk Festival in October in Richmond, Va. The Ramblers are usually greeted with enthusiastic responses. "People, they love it," said Michot. "They don't know what the hell we're talking about, but they think it's great. "Maybe that makes it more mysterious to them. What's nice about a lot of the swing stuff, I can translate it while we're singing. To translate the Cajun stuff, it wouldn't come out very good." "We played at the Tropical Heatwave in Tampa Florida in May," added Michot. "We were playing this huge room on the third floor and there was no one in there when we got there. "So we go backstage, have a drink and come back out the place is packed. There must have been a couple of thousand people in there, the biggest crowd we ever played to. "They went wild. They never heard it and they were screaming. I never heard anything so loud." (Listen to Herman Fuselier's radio show at 10 p.m. Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday on KRVS 88.7 FM. His TV show airs at 1:30 p.m. Saturday and Sunday on KDCG-TV 22.)

---