Magical Musical Tours
Music travels. It rattles from strings, blows out the bell of a horn or a guitar amp, or is squeezed from an accordion bellows; but it travels across the room and across the world to let all who hear it know where that sound came from. Because of all that traveling, Louisiana music is bigger than just the rattle coming out of a juke joint or a Cajun dance hall; it is the reverberation of how the world understands Louisiana, and how Louisiana sings the song of itself.
Larry Garner pulls no punches when asked how the blues is doing.
“In other places, it’s real healthy,” said Garner. “It’s pretty much healthy everywhere except right here at home. You get a lot of support when you play other places, especially when you say you are from Louisiana.
“People are basically spoiled here at home because you can go into any old club any time and hear somebody play.
“There is always somebody coming along that plays something,” Garner said of the young players showing up at blues jams, looking for a chance to play with some of Baton Rouge’s living legends; but their numbers are dwindling. “You don’t see it as much as you did before. Instruments were something you really cherished. There are younger kids that come out to the jam sessions, younger kids playing zydeco, young kids that want to be rock stars, too. It’s just not as prevalent.”
Garner started playing when he was eleven years old. “My uncle played for us whenever we went up to his house. He was a paraplegic up in Clinton. He’s the one that said if I got my parents to get me a guitar, he’d show me what little bit he knows.”
One fateful night brought Garner to a blues jam that set him on the path he travels now.
“That was probably in the early eighties. I was working at Dow Chemical and had been there since 1975, and there was a traffic jam on the Interstate where the Governor’s Mansion is and it was backed up to where you get off the bridge. I got off on the street where the old Tabby’s Blues Box was and saw a sign out front that said ‘Jam 2 Nite’ and talked to Tabby and they said, ‘Oh yeah, every Wednesday night, they got people coming over and they jam.’ At the time I was working every day and needed a place to go to let my hair down.
“If it wasn’t for Tabby Thomas’ Blues Box, I wouldn’t have traveled to all the countries I’ve been to in the last twenty-five years.”
Louis Michot is a hard guy to catch, what with the Lost Bayou Ramblers’ tour schedule and the myriad projects in which he involves himself. He was in Brooklyn at the time of this interview. “I’m playing with Beasts of the Southern Wild,” said Michot. “We are doing a screening and performance of the entire score in Prospect Park on Sunday, and we’re coming back up here on the twentieth with the Ramblers.”
Michot started out playing in his father’s band, Les Frères Michot, and his crossed love of Cajun music and rock and roll led him to form the Lost Bayou Ramblers in 1999.
“I think when we started, there weren’t that many young bands getting together [to play Cajun music]; there weren’t that many young bands period,” said Michot. “The members of Feufollet were, like, eight years old, so we were kind of alone at that. Coming out to Brooklyn and doing these crazy tours to California definitely sparked some interest for new generations. We make a conscious effort to play [Cajun music] to audiences that haven’t heard it so they can embrace it for the music and not just because its ‘of the genre.’ We try to get to rock clubs, punk clubs, any place that will appreciate what kind of music we are. We try to get out into the normal world and not get subcategorized or pigeonholed.”
Lost Bayou Ramblers is part of a new generation of Cajun bands that use heritage, not as a frame, but as a springboard.
“It was when guys like Cedric Watson broke away from Pine Leaf Boys and started doing his own thing, and how Feufollet started going in their directions; and for us, these are ideas that we’d been kicking around for ten years. We finally jumped off the cliff with it and it took flight and didn’t crash. It’s allowed us to get to a musical level that’s been inspiring to us as a band.”
The important thing to Michot is to keep the culture alive. “Continuing to take an open-minded approach to Cajun music and an inspired approach—playing what you want to hear rather than what you’re expected to play—keeps people getting interested in the music.”
Details. Details. Details.
Larry Garner’s latest album is Blues for Sale
Lost Bayou Ramblers’ latest album is Mammoth Waltz
MAGICAL MUSICAL TOUR Playlist
Alex’s suggested listening for Louisiana music lovers.
Larry Garner, “Bull Rider’” from Here Today Gone Tomorrow
Jonathon “Boogie” Long, “The Dealer” from Jonathon “Boogie’ Long
Tyree Neal (feat. Adlib), “Put It On Me” from Workaholic
Lil’ Nathan and the Zydeco Big Timers, “Ugly Ways” from Go Big or Go Home
Lost Bayou Ramblers, “Blues de Bernadette” from Mammoth Waltz
Soul Express featuring Corey Ledet – “Superstition” from En Français Vol. 2
The Babineaux Sisters, “Trois Petits Tchocs” from En Français Vol. 2
Isle Dernière, “La Terre Est Enflammée” from their self-titled EP
Feufollett, “Les Jours Sont Longs” from En Couleurs