Lafayette, LA
Herman Fuselier, September 2007
Live CD, tours keep these musicians rambling
The Blue Moon Saloon, a cross between a 100-year-old guest house, bar and patio dancehall, is one of the most happening music venues in Lafayette. But it can be murder for recording a live CD.
Last January, the Lost Bayou Ramblers were up for the challenge. Engineer Frenchie Smith of The Bubble in Austin, Texas, who's worked with Santana, Los Lonely Boys and other stars, recorded from the bathroom.
Humidity made tuning difficult. Ceiling fans added unwanted noise.
Worst of all, the Ramblers, used to playing raw and off the cuff, had prepared a set list. These Bayou Ramblers were really living up to their name - lost.
"We don't normally do a set list, and that threw us off," said fiddler Louis Michot. "So on the second night, we said if we're going to record ourselves live, let's record ourselves live.
"We burned the set list and played it like we normally do. Ninety percent of the album came from the second night."
Challenging conditions captured the Ramblers at their energetic best in Live a la Blue Moon, an 18-song CD on Swallow Records of Ville Platte. Since 1999, this five-piece band of young Cajun musicians has specialized in the unplugged, house dance style of their father and uncles, Les Freres Michot.
The Ramblers' lively mix of early accordion dancehall songs, fiddle tunes and Cajun swing have kept them busy from the New Orleans Jazz Fest to the Brooklyn Botanic Gardens. They perform today at Music & Market in Opelousas before playing next week at a blues bar in Tennessee, a surf bar in Maryland and a restaurant in New York.
Sandwiched in-between is a prestigious, invitation-only gig at the Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington, D.C. and a concert at Yale University. The Yale gig reunites them with former UL folklorist Ryan Brasseaux, who is earning his doctorate at the university.
At Yale, the Ramblers also will unveil Ramblin', an Erik Charpentier documentary about the band's road and home life during the past two years. Local fans won't get to see it until mid-November at the Acadiana Center for the Arts.
The live CD and a documentary aren't enough. The Ramblers tour France, Belgium and The Netherlands in November.
In the meantime, the band is finishing up Vermilionaire, an analog release done at Dockside in Maurice. Michot said the CD will be one of their best works.
"We're not from Vermilion Parish, but we're from Bayou Vermilion and Lafayette. Our camp is on the Vermilion. A lot of our songs come from the Vermilion, with Ethel Mae Bourque and my dad and uncles. They all have songs about the Vermilion area.
"It's going to be our most focused release ever. We're real excited about it. We've been working hard on it." |
