A New Stage for Roots Music
A collaboration with the Lost Bayou Ramblers earns the Louisiana Philharmonic its first Grammy win, in an unprecedented category for American orchestras
Editor's Note (February 5, 2024) : We are thrilled to share that after this story was published, the Lost Bayou Ramblers and Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra album, Live: Orpheum Theater NOLA, were awarded the Grammy Award for Best Regional Roots Album in a rare tie with Buckwheat Zydeco Jr. and the Legendary Ils Sont Partis Band and their album New Beginnings.
It is only from a musical tapestry as rich and inventive as Louisiana’s that a symphonic orchestra produces an album nominated for a Grammy in the “Best Regional Roots Music” category.
“It blew my mind,” said Anwar Nasir, the Executive Director at the Louisiana Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO), whose live album with internationally-acclaimed Cajun/Creole band Lost Bayou Ramblers, recorded last January and released in August, has been recognized by the Recording Academy along with a host of other Louisiana artists. “For us to be the orchestra of this region . . .for this to be our first nomination felt really really special, to be a trailblazer in a way that is magical, and can show that orchestras can be more than just playing the greats, the Beethoven the Tchaikovsky. We can also do the music from our hometowns.”
The concept was part of the LPO’s ongoing series of collaborative performances with local musicians. Demonstrating the orchestra’s range, and its place within the Louisiana music community, the sonically exciting shows have brought the classic orchestral sound to bear on contemporary music by local artists the likes of Tank and the Bangas, Sweet Crude, and Black Masking Indian tribes. When Nasir first joined LPO in 2021, coming out of the pandemic, “We wanted to turn our attention to really being the orchestra of New Orleans in Louisiana, and that meant really featuring the music of our region,” he said.
Prior to the 2022 concert, Lost Bayou Ramblers had already worked with orchestras across the country, performing live their original score of the 2012 film Beasts of the Southern Wild. In 2019, they brought that performance home to Lafayette, playing the soundtrack with the Acadiana Symphony Orchestra. For the occasion, they created new orchestral arrangements of Lost Bayou Ramblers songs for the first time. The LPO performance and resulting album drew from these songs, as well as four new ones arranged with the help of local composer and orchestrator Jay Weigel just for the New Orleans performance. “Jay was really the glue between the two sounds,” said Nasir. “He really brought them together in a way that birthed this fantastic project that I don’t think any of us knew was going to get this big.”
“Translating the rhythms of Cajun music to an orchestra was the trickiest thing,” said Lost Bayou Ramblers fiddler and lead singer Louis Michot. “This is a very interesting collaboration because you’re coming from a completely oral tradition in music, and matching it with the exact opposite extreme, which is learned, note-by-note arrangements. It’s really hard to put enough Italian musical annotations to properly convey what a syncopated Cajun music rhythm is supposed to sound like. The beautiful thing about it is when you bring it together, music is still a universal language. So once the melodies of Cajun music are put to paper for the orchestra, it just comes alive beautifully.”
The Grammy winner for the Best Regional Roots Music Album will be announced at the 2024 Grammy Awards on February 4 at 7 pm. This year, the category’s nominees are all from Louisiana, and include Buckwheat Zydeco Jr. & The Legendary Ils Sont Partis Band’s album New Beginnings, Dwayne Dopsie & the Zydeco Hellraisers’ album Live at the 2023 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, New Breed Brass Band’s Made in New Orleans, the New Orleans Nightcrawlers’ Too Much to Hold, and The Rumble’s album featuring Chief Joseph Boudreaux, Jr., Live at the Maple Leaf. Nominees in other categories include Jon Batiste, Tank and the Bangas, Neutral Milk Hotel, PJ Morton, Rickie Lee Jones, Bobby Rush, Samantha Fish and Jesse Dayton, Terence Blanchard and Lauren Daigle.
Learn more about the Ramblers at lostbayouramblers.com, and about LPO at lpomusic.com.