Feufollet Takes Off

Every once in a while a band comes along that you think might be special, a band that makes you wonder what they might be capable of, what might be possible for them. Feufollet (foo-fo-LAY) is one of those bands.

Born from the collaboration of fiddler Chris Segura and multi-instrumentalist Chris Stafford nearly eighteen years ago—when the former was just twelve and the latter only nine—Feufollet recorded its first full-length CD in 1999 (when Segura and Stafford were fifteen and twelve), announcing to the world that a spirited group of young musicians had arrived, Cajun legacy and traditions in hand, youthful energy and a desire for innovation chomping at the bit. Even the name they chose—a Cajun reference to spectral lights that sometimes appear at night over swampy land due to the release of gaseous deposits embedded in the land below—represented a buoyant boast with its vernacular translation, “crazy fire.” Now, fifteen years later, Feufollet is about to bring its sixth full-length CD, unnamed at press time, into the world, a recording with plenty of crazy fire in it, but plenty of accomplishment as well, not to mention a host of unspecified, but latent, possibilities.

The band needs no introduction in the world of Cajun music, these days a collection of purist practitioners, enthusiast fusionists, and a cutting-edge new breed, where Feufollet looks to have the inside track. For example, for more than forty years now, the worlds of Cajun and Creole culture have gathered together in mid-October in Lafayette for Festivals Acadiens et Créoles, a massive, three-day presentation of local music, regional food, and the best handcrafts … but most of all, lots of local music. Festival Music Director Barry Jean Ancelet is both a chaired University of Louisiana at Lafayette professor and a kind of reigning elder over what is now a six-decade-old traditional Cajun music revival. You might guess he takes his music very seriously. “We listen to hours of radio,” Ancelet explained, in describing how the annual festival’s music is programmed. “We go out to local performances and pay close attention to what records are coming out. In real terms, we try with each festival to present the state of the art, where Cajun music and Creole music are at this particular moment.”

For the past three years in a row, the future of Cajun and Creole music has been in the hands of the same headlining group: Feufollet. And asking the band to headline three years in a row at the festival has been no afterthought, said Ancelet: “The people who are invited to play at the festival are obviously standing out that year; they’re clearly doing something that genuinely matters.” And Feufollet? “They’re doin’ real stuff, man; they’re the real deal. And they keep pushing their own boundaries, on their own, just to keep getting better. They’re just amazing.”

But unconditional acceptance within the world of Cajun and Creole music is one thing. Expanding beyond the world of listeners comfortable with, and even enthusiastic about, vernacularly-oriented music blended with a solid rock treatment (but whose lyrics are expressed exclusively in Cajun French) is another thing, entirely.

Indie Rockers?

There are worlds of listeners and potentially receptive audiences spread across the globe both in French-speaking countries and in other locations where an appreciation for what is generally referred to as “world music” has been cultivated. Maybe a dozen or more Cajun/Creole bands from Louisiana—ranging in musical attitude from conventional to genre-busting—qualify as active contenders in that particular arena. Roughly half that number are actively employing the basic elements of rock and rock-related sounds to redefine what the world considers Louisiana Cajun music.

The first Louisiana band to cross the bridge into straight-rock territory was Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys. Having released three rock-oriented albums since the mid-1990s, they’ve succeeded in elevating their creative standing here in their home state and in foreign markets but have yet to do much more than dent the domestic world of U.S. indie rock. Most recently, The Lost Bayou Ramblers intensified their own appreciation of early, primitive Cajun roots music into a punk-sounding rock amalgam, racking up a series of incursions into city-bound indie scenes in hip environs like Austin, New Orleans, and Brooklyn, but not much more.

And now it’s Feufollet’s turn to test the waters with a brand-new CD, a dramatically reconfigured band lineup, and an aggressive approach to releasing their product without the benefit of a major or independent label.

The last time the young Cajun band went into the studio, the result probably surpassed all the members’ expectations. En Couleurs, released in 2010, today sounds pretty tame; but at the time, it was cutting edge for Cajun music—rocking rather than two-stepping—and a concept album to boot, filled with musical interludes and intros keyed to primary colors of the prismatic spectrum.

For traditional Cajun music fans who have admired the young band’s remarkable ability to play just like their elders (only with a fresh, updated perspective), En Couleurs might have been confusing and disappointing. But to the new, young audience beginning to coalesce at home and to the band’s musical peers, En Couleurs was a breath of fresh, daylit air. Better yet, by way of connection through local swamp pop veterans Li’l Band O’ Gold, the album found its way into the hands of English rock star Elvis Costello, who was mightily impressed, and said so in a fairly visible interview with the British music press.

What followed were bookings in England and Europe, capped off with an unexpected Grammy nomination back home. Best of all, when the band decided to actually attend the Grammy ceremony, who did they run into but their old buddy Elvis Costello! And who was he hanging with? One of the band’s great musical heroes, Neil Young.

Fast forward four years and one is left to wonder what happened. Why didn’t Feufollet grab the momentum their last CD created and use it to catapult into national prominence? It’s not a simple answer.

In part, life intervened. But the real answer is that Feufollet is a Lafayette-centric band, like their counterparts Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys, The Red Stick Ramblers, The Pine Leaf Boys, The Lost Bayou Ramblers, Cedric Watson & Bijou Creole, and the all-female group Bonsoir Catin, all members of a growing cohort of bands and fans currently engaged in a new resurgence of Cajun traditional music. And for these bands and their indie rock cousins, Brass Bed and GIVERS, it’s the music that matters. Fame and success are good and always considered a viable goal; but creating the music and forming the kind of genuine camaraderie that actually gives birth to that creativity are considered essential.

Clockwise from upper left: drummer Michael Stafford; founding member, vocalist, accordionist, guitarist, and fiddler Chris Stafford; founding member and fiddler Chris Segura; keyboardist Andrew Toups; vocalist, guitarist, and fiddler Kelli Jones-Savoy; bassist Philippe Billeaudeaux. Credit: GregMilesPhotography.com.

Trending Toward Americana

Perhaps the greatest disruption to life-as-they-knew-it for Feufollet was the departure of long-time female vocalist Anna Laura Edmiston, a free-spirited multi-instrumentalist who brought a sense of passion and playfulness to the band’s colorful stage presence. As Feufollet was in the process of organically developing a new sound, Edmiston received an offer she felt she couldn’t refuse—to join Cavalia, a Montreal-based, equestrian-oriented, traveling extravaganza. Basically, she ran away to join the circus. A hard exit to top, and not an easy act to follow.

Fortunately, a viable replacement was not far away. Kelli Jones-Savoy, a North Carolina immigrant raised in the old-time country music tradition, had become a good friend of the band during her years spent in Louisiana, since 2006, absorbing the Cajun heritage.

“All the members of Feufollet, including Anna Laura, have been good friends of mine since I moved here,” Jones-Savoy explained. “They are a great group of people and are a big part of the wonderfully talented and supportive community that I fell in love with when I came to this part of the country. I do have to say, though, that when they asked me to be in the band I was nervous as well as honored. They had such a great band vibe, a real connection with each other, and a fairly extensive repertoire with Anna Laura; so adding a new member meant adjusting to all that. And that can be a very delicate situation.”

In fact, Jones-Savoy, who is also proficient on guitar and fiddle, has became a significant catalyst in helping determine and focus the band’s fresh sound, bringing a wealth of musical references and writing a number of new compositions that have become central components of the band’s recent repertoire.

And she’s not the only addition to the band’s lineup, which also includes Chris Stafford’s brother Michael on drums (a member since he was eight years old and enlisted to play on the band’s first CD) and Philipe Billeaudeaux on bass (who joined six years ago, after a stint with indie rockers Brass Bed). Feufollet has also recently added keyboardist Andrew Toups to the mix full-time (also from Brass Bed). Toups, like Jones-Savoy, adds a super-sensitive ear and the ability to overlap textures, extending especially Chris Stafford’s accordion swirls into deep-background swells of harmonic chording. With Jones-Savoy’s English-language compositions and a decided tendency to favor the recent trend among young bands toward adopting Cajun honky-tonk funk and swing, Feufollet now finds itself calling the recent market category of Americana home, or at least familiar territory.

Toward New Possibilities

With this shift toward an English-language, Americana-based sound, Feufollet hoped to snag the services and resources of a serious record label. Trying their hand to no avail, the band decided to embark on a new, state-of-the-art strategy drawing on an alliance with a company called Thirty Tigers, which offers a full menu of à la carte record label services ranging from distribution to artist management to crowdfunding.

Created in Austin with up-and-coming indie producer Danny Reisch, Feufollet’s upcoming CD, scheduled for release in early 2015, promises to break new ground on several levels, both aesthetic and commercial. Based on advance videos available on YouTube, the band’s new sound builds on their Americana leanings to create performances that are both whimsical and, at another extreme, bordering on mysterious and spooky. In their own promotional literature they describe themselves as “a band deeply rooted in the Francophone soil of Louisiana and pushing boldly into unexplored yet utterly natural varieties of Cajun experience.”

With a new, more accomplished and more flexible lineup, new material, a new attitude toward their music in general (especially English-language songs), and the addition of dynamic guidance from industry professionals, it’s impossible to tell just how far Feufollet may go. Indications point to farther—perhaps much farther—than after their last CD release.

They could become the first of the young Cajun bands to break the French-English language market barrier. They could considerably expand their standing in Cajun and world-music circles. They could even make the leap into mainstream Americana listening territory, perhaps achieving significant commercial success. If they do, it may well be a victory not just for the band itself, but for the entire vanguard of Cajun rockers as well.

Details. Details. Details.

feufollet.net

Feufollet will play at the Blue Moon Saloon in Lafayette on September 12.