Florida Cajun Zydeco Update! No. 71 / December 2018

Photo by David Simpson, Eunice, Louisiana

Florida Cajun Zydeco Update!

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Wilson Savoy

Rockin’ with

No. 71 | December 2018

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Headline fonts used this issue are from the Between™ typeface family designed by Akira Kobayashi and released by Monotype in 2016. He describes the typefaces as having three main states. “While different from each other, they all offer humancentered design to ensure that copy set in them is affable and approachable.”

The main body text is ITC Charter, and the captions are typically TT Norms.

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Wilson Savoy, Grammy-winning bandleader of the Pine Leaf Boys, exudes an immense passion for music when performing on the stage. When not on stage behind microphone, Wilson’s passion is making things out of wood.

Florida Cajun Zydeco Update!

NO.71 | DECEMBER 2018 4 St. Pete Cajun and Zydeco Social Club Dance

Dec. 4 and 18 (6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m.) — Caddy’s on Central.

FEATURE 6 Rockin’ with Wilson Savoy

At age 36, the leader of the Pine Leaf Boys has more than just musician as his occupational title. He is or has been a carpenter, business owner, real estate investor, film producer and actor.

CAJUN ZYDECO COMMUNITY 50 Zydefunk at BBC in Tallahassee on Dec. 8

Atlanta band performs at Bradfordville Blues Club.

51 Dikki Du and his Zydeco Krewe in Sarasota on Dec. 14

Dikki Du serves up some zydeco at a Sarasota restaurant.

52 Donna The Buffalo Florida Tour

Join the “herd” for DTB’s annual year-end concerts.

53 Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band

Performances in Tampa, Naples and N. Fort Myers.

54 Outside Florida

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The St. Pete cajun & zydeco

Social Club est. 2018

Tuesday, Dec. 4 and Tuesday, Dec. 18 6 :30 P.M. TO 9 :3 0 P.M . Twice monthly Cajun and zydeco dance at Caddy’s on Central in downtown St. Pete on the first and third Tuesdays. Good mix of danceable music by Cajun and zydeco artists singing about death, divorce, drinking and dancing.

No cover charge. No membership dues.

Caddy’s is at 217 Central Ave., St. Pete 33701.

Go to www.FloridaCajunZydeco.com for more information.

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Rockin’ with

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veryone in his family is a musician.

His father is also a famous Cajun accordion builder. His mother is a noted author. His brother owns a record label. It probably never occurred to Wilson Savoy that he could just be a musician.

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ilson Allen Savoy (born February 1, 1982 in Eunice, Louisiana) is a Grammy-winning accordionist, keyboard player, fiddler and singer with the Cajun bands Pine Leaf Boys and The Band Courtbouillon.

Wilson began his musical career in 2000 with the Savoy Family Band (consisting of his father, Marc, mother, Ann, and brother, Joel Savoy). Since 2000 he has also operated Almena Pictures, a film company specializing in band documentaries and music videos. In 2004, Wilson joined the Red Stick Ramblers from Baton Rouge, and in 2005 formed his own band, the Pine Leaf Boys. In 2006 he and his brother Joel (a fiddle player, cofounder of Valcour Records, and also a former member of the Red Stick Ramblers) were instrumental in starting the annual Faquetigue Courir de Mardi Gras as an

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Wilson Savoy is known to pick up the fiddle now and again, particularly in the Savoy Family Band. Here he harmonizes with brother Joel. But in the Pine Leaf Boys, he has generally left that duty to the designated fiddle player in the band. Early on that was Cedric Watson, one of the founding members of the band. For the past decade it has been Courtney Granger.

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alternative to the main Eunice event. They felt that the other local runs had gotten too rowdy and lost too much of their authentic traditions. The run has become one of the most musically-based of the various versions of the courir.

Also in 2006, he recorded a collection of 1930s era songs and classic Cajun swing music with the Lost Bayou Ramblers titled Mello Joy Boys: Une Tasse Cafe.

In 2008 the Pine Leaf Boys were nominated for a Grammy Award for their 2007 album, Blues de Musicien, released on Arhoolie Records.

In 2010 and 2011, Savoy appeared as himself in three episodes of the HBO series Treme. In 2013, the eponymous debut album of The Band Courtbouillion featuring Savoy, Steve Riley and

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Wilson Savoy appeared as himself in the HBO series Treme, Episode 20, at a funeral for Harley, filmed in 2011.

Wayne Toups won a Grammy Award as Best Regional Roots Music Album.

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Pine Leaf Boys Debut at JazzFest ’06

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eviewer Geoffrey Himes covered the debut of the Pine Leaf Boys at JazzFest in New Orleans in 2006. There was a lot riding on the show because Cajun music desperately needed a young band to come forward and get young audiences excited about the genre. If any act was going to break through the domination of zydeco and make South Louisiana dancehalls safe again for fiddle music, this was the group that was going to do it.

Himes wrote, “Chris Strachwitz, the owner of the California roots-music label Arhoolie Records, paced nervously on the sidelines. Onto the Fais-DoDo Stage came the five musicians, all in their early 20s, wearing baseball caps, jeans and sneakers.

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If any act was going to break through the domination of zydeco in 2006 and make South Louisiana dancehalls safe again for fiddle music, this was the group that was going to do it.

They began with Clifton Chenier’s ‘Zydeco Sont Pas Sale,’ and Wilson Savoy and Cedric Watson pumped the bellows of their button accordions as

Visit FloridaCajunZydeco.com Photo by David Simpson

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“The Pine Leaf Boys didn’t hold anything back during their performance Friday evening, April 27, 2012, at Scène Chevron during Festival International de Louisiane in Lafayette,” chronicled photographer David Simpson.

Florida Cajun Zydeco Update!

if they were trying to get a fire started. They soon succeeded, and the zydeco standard crackled and sparked, even with the old-school Creole spin the band put on it.

“That was fine, but there’s no shortage of South Louisiana bands that can play stomping zydeco two-steps. What’s missing are young bands that can play fiddles and waltzes with the same intensity that they bring to zydeco. So Strachwitz kept pacing. The real test would be the second song, a traditional waltz called ‘Musician with a Broken Heart.’ Savoy picked up a fiddle and Watson stayed on the squeezebox—the reverse of their primary instruments—and Watson sang the lilting lament in French.

Himes wrote, “Something remarkable happened.

Even though the tune was taken at a patient

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tempo, it exerted an exhilarating, intoxicating effect. Maybe it was the way the rhythm section — drummer Drew Simon, bassist Blake Miller and guitarist Jon Bertrand — leaned on the onebeat of each three-four measure; maybe it was the way Savoy’s fiddle and Watson’s accordion stretched the harmonies like a rubber band before allowing them to snap back into place; maybe it was the way Watson sang as if drunk on his own romantic disappointment.”

Whatever the cause, this waltz was every bit as exciting

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Wilson Savoy and Jon Bertrand

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The early Pine Leaf Boys jamming with Blake Miller on bass, Cedric Watson on fiddle, Wilson Savoy on accordion and Jon Bertrand on guitar.

as the faster, harder zydeco number, and when Savoy took off on his fiddle solo, Watson began waltzing with his accordion around and around the stage, as deliriously dizzy as many of us in the crowd. Strachwitz stopped pacing and beamed.

The waltz was followed by a riotous version of

Florida Cajun Zydeco Update!

John Delafose’s “Uncle Bud,” the twin-fiddle waltz “Jolie Joues Rose,” and Hank Thompson’s honky-tonk classic “The Wild Side of Life,” belted out in twangy French by Simon. The set was a triumphant arrival.

Here’s a young band that can match the zydeco acts at their own game and then shift, with no loss in power, to the sweet fiddle melodies, romantic waltzes and story ballads that are just as important to South Louisiana music but that were in danger of being lost to the dust of memory.

“We were standing outside a club before a show once,” Wilson Savoy recalls, “and these people walked by and asked, ‘What kind of music do you play?’ We said Cajun, and they said, ‘Oh, we don’t want to hear that old man’s chanky-chank music.’

I said, ‘No, come in, you’ll like it. I’ll put you on

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the guest list.’ They came in and started dancing.

They said, ‘Oh, this is zydeco music.’ I said, ‘No, it’s Cajun. This is what it should sound like. When did you ever hear a zydeco band play waltzes on the fiddle?’ People have forgotten how exciting Cajun music can be.”

Growing Up, It Was Jerry Lee Lewis Who Inspired Wilson musically

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avoy grew up in a house where the music was like the family sofa; it was always there.

His father Marc still operates a music store outside of Eunice where he sells Cajun recordings and instruments including the prized button accordions that he hand builds himself. Wilson’s mother Ann is a music researcher who wrote the influential book, Cajun Music: A Reflection of a

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When Wilson heard a cassette of the soundtrack to Great Balls of Fire, the grade schooler became obsessed with boogie-woogie piano. Wilson's rollicking piano work in the style of Jerry Lee Lewis punctuates some of the song selections at Pine Leaf Boys performances.

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People, and produced the albums Evangeline Made and Creole Bred.

The couple—with Marc on button accordion and Ann on lead vocals and guitar—formed a trio with BeauSoleil fiddler Michael Doucet and recorded four albums for Arhoolie. Without Doucet, they regularly play dances near their home and have recorded as the Savoy-Smith Band and the Savoy Family Band. Moreover, Ann has recorded as the prime mover of the Magnolia Sisters and the Zozo Sisters, her duo with Linda Ronstadt.

Every Saturday morning when Wilson was growing up, there was a Cajun jam session at the store. Many an evening, friends from out of state or from down the road would sit around the screen porch picking tunes. They could be some of the biggest names in Louisiana music history—Dennis

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Florida Cajun Zydeco Update!

Courtney Granger joined the Pine Leaf Boys on fiddle in 2008.

McGee, D.L. Menard or Dewey Balfa—but to Wilson, his brother Joel and their sisters Sarah and Gabriel, it was background noise like the television or radio.

Joel and Sarah went through a grunge phase, when they were fixated on Nirvana, but Wilson’s tastes were more eccentric. When he heard

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a cassette of the soundtrack to Great Balls of Fire, the grade schooler became obsessed with boogie-woogie piano and honky-tonk. Far from discouraging this non-Cajun tangent, Wilson’s parents encouraged him by getting him albums by Pete Johnson and Albert Ammons. The young boy soon commandeered the family piano and started to figure out the syncopated patterns.

“I started playing boogie-woogie,” Wilson explains, “because it was exotic to me. Cajun music was something I heard every day in the house, so I took it for granted. I didn’t realize that not everyone had it in their house growing up. Even today, I’m realizing more and more how important my folks are to this culture.

“My dad built me an accordion from an old tree that his father planted and he wrote the story

Florida Cajun Zydeco Update!

about the tree — how it had died the same year my grandfather did — inside the accordion. It was more of sentimental value than musical value, though, because I didn’t play accordion at that time.

“When I moved to Baton Rouge to go to school at LSU, I brought the accordion with me. One morning, I woke up and the sunlight was shining on the accordion where it sat on a shelf. I lay there looking at it shining in the sun, and I said, ‘You know, I think I can play that. After all, it only has ten buttons, and I already know all the songs.’

LSU is on a nature preserve, and I would go out in the woods every day and play for hours and hours. I grew up on a farm, and I wasn’t used to a big city, but when I was out in the woods with the accordion, it was like I was back home. It’s the same way now. Wherever I am, if I play the

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Wilson Savoy in 2007

Florida Cajun Zydeco Update!

accordion, it’s like a piece of home is with me.�

Before long, Wilson was driving the hour and a half to Lafayette every Wednesday night to play the Cajun jam session until the wee hours of morning, and then driving back for Thursday classes. When he realized that he spent the rest of the week looking forward to that trip, he decided to transfer to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

The Genesis of Pine Leaf Boys

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round August of 2004, a loose-knit group of five-to-ten musicians was setting up camp on the U of L campus whenever the weather was nice and playing Cajun music for tips. The group included members of Feufollet as well, and the bunch found playing there was a

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great way to rehearse songs, earn pizza money and meet girls. Then on March 23, 2005, the dean of students decided to enforce a regulation against performing on campus without a permit. The campus police booted the pickers out. An outraged Wilson Savoy wrote a letter to every media outlet in town, saying, “I’m upset that a campus that calls itself the Ragin’ Cajuns would kick out a group of students playing Cajun music.” The local newspapers couldn’t resist a story like that.

It was a publicity bonanza and soon the group was being called by clubs with job offers. They were so excited that all ten of the associated members crowded into La Louisianne Records’ studio to cut a record. Savoy sent the results off to Chris Strachwitz in hopes that he would release it as an album, just as he’d released his parents’

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Florida Cajun Zydeco Update!

music. Strachwitz, as is his wont, was blunt: The recording was a mess. There were too many people whooping and hollering, strumming and banging,

Visit FloridaCajunZydeco.com Photo by David Simpson

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Wilson decided the focus would be traditional Cajun and Creole music on traditional instruments delivered with a rock ’n’ roll punch.

Florida Cajun Zydeco Update!

with no focal point. They had to decide who was in the band and what the band’s signature sound would be.

Savoy narrowed the band down to its five stalwarts: himself, Watson, Simon, Bertrand and Miller. He decided the focus would be traditional Cajun and Creole music on traditional instruments delivered with a rock ’n’ roll punch. The quintet jammed hour after hour in their communal home and in clubs all over South Louisiana. In the meantime, Joel Savoy, having left the Red Stick Ramblers, had opened his own SavoyFaire recording studio, and readily agreed when Wilson asked if he’d produce and engineer the Pine Leaf Boys’ second stab at an album. But when they started working together on the sessions, the brothers discovered they had very different

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approaches.

“Joel has a very refined style on the fiddle,” Wilson explains. “He’s a perfectionist who wants everything to be very clean. On the other hand, I’m the opposite. I’d rather it be crazy and wild and intense. If we make a recording and the tempo or pitch goes off, that’s okay to me if the energy and passion are there. It wouldn’t be okay with Joel.”

“Wilson and I are almost exact opposites musically,” Joel agrees. “He’s into a rougher sound than I am. That’s obvious from the Pine Leaf Boys album. They’re not going for perfect; perfect for them is whatever comes out in the moment. I’m more into arranging things. Nonetheless, we get along great. I love to go see them live and I love sitting in with them on steel. I love how they’re so in your face. There’s nothing like seeing those guys

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Florida Cajun Zydeco Update!

Brothers Wilson and Joel. Wilson explains, “He’s a perfectionist who wants everything to be very clean. On the other hand, I’m the opposite. I’d rather it be crazy and wild and intense.”

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when they’re on.”

The give-and-take between the two brothers led to the album La Musique. Wilson sang the traditional Cajun numbers by Iry LeJeune and Leo Soileau, Watson sang the old Creole tunes associated with Canray Fontenot and Eddie Poullard, and Drew Simon sang the country-Cajun classics by Aldus Roger and Belton Richard. Chris Strachwitz readily embraced the results this time and released the album on Arhoolie. He showed up at JazzFest to see if the young band could translate the music to the stage.

“When I was a kid,” Wilson recalled, “everyone was talking about zydeco and no one was talking about Cajun. The best Cajun bands, like BeauSoleil and Steve Riley, were traveling so much that they rarely played locally, and all the

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Florida Cajun Zydeco Update!

Courtney Granger and Wilson Savoy at Festivals Acadien in 2018.

kids were going to see Beau Jocque and Keith Frank. Zydeco was hip; it was mostly in English and it had that big bass-and-drum beat. To most people, Cajun music was an old man sitting in a bar at three o’clock on a Sunday afternoon playing the fiddle. But we’ve changed that. We’ve got kids talking about Cajun again.”

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Wilson Savoy Carpentry

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ccording to his Facebook business description, “Wilson Savoy Carpentry is a collection of local Lafayette Cajun carpenters who specialize in building and renovating. From porches to attic conversions.” Those ‘attic conversions’ become living quarters for ‘air bnb’ businesses.

It is obvious from his photo documentation on Facebook that Wilson has been at this for a while. From more than two years of photo uploads, he has been involved in large and small projects requiring a range of construction skillsets.

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Stage wall for Artmosphere (Lafayette, LA) was built by the Savoy crew.

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Wilson in his favorite pose, surveying a large porch under construction.

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Wilson admires the view from this balcony project.

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This tear-drop camper built by Wilson Savoy Carpentry.

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Plywood sheathing gets a lift to the roof of this new construction project.

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A Tiny House for Sarah In September 2014, the Clarion Ledger of Jackson, MS ran a story on a tiny house project being built in Lafayette, LA for Sarah Trahan.

According to Wilson, “It all started with Sarah. She wanted to buy an Airstream, and I said, ‘Don’t buy an Airstream. Build you one.’”

With Savoy as foreman and lead carpenter, construction began Aug. 1 as a community effort.

“It’s been a whole bunch of the local community. A lot of her friends. The Blue Moon crowd, I like to call them,” said Savoy,

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Wilson Savoy stands in the doorway of a tiny house under construction that he and others built in Lafayette, LA for his friend Sarah Trahan to live in while attending school in Arizona.

Visit FloridaCajunZydeco.com Facebook

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adding the whole process has been on Facebook.

“You wouldn’t believe the amount of excitement people get over that,” he said. “They just like the idea about building a small house to live in.”

An arched door at the entry is just one of Trahan’s ideas.

“She has a lot of cool ideas,” said Savoy. “She tries to reuse as much reclaimed stuff as we

Florida Cajun Zydeco Update!

can: a lot of old windows, a lot of old wood and beams.”

Material came from home improvement stores and from antique and reclaimed wood shops.

“It’s win-win because not only are you using wood that otherwise would’ve been tossed or burned, or just destroyed with a crowbar, they take care and take it down slowly, remove all the nails,” said Savoy. “So you’re saving, not wasting, new wood, and you get something that looks really great and really cool, and it’s already dried out.”

“The front and back are counter-levered over the axle, so when you're working on it it’s moving a little bit,” Savoy said. “And if you’re trying to use a level, it never looks right. Your weight on the trailer affects everything.”

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47 Facebook

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Mathilda provides all the creature comforts of home ‌ in Phoenix.

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He said, “That was probably the trickiest part, the part that gave me the hardest time.”

“I’ve always liked the challenge of working with constraints,” said Savoy. “Working with the max height, the max width, the max weight, even the max electrical — you can’t exceed 50 amps,” he said. “Most houses have 200 amps of electricity. I like that challenge of how are you going to wire this thing up correctly, the most efficient way. I enjoy problem-solving.”

Sarah was later interviewed by Fox Business, where she commented on the experience of building her own tiny house: “I purchased a flatbed auto trailer in the summer of 2014, not long after watching a documentary called Tiny, and we hit the ground running with the build.

Florida Cajun Zydeco Update!

Mathilda, named after my grandmother, took about three months to construct. The process was grueling and beautiful. After acceptance to SCNM and moving to Arizona, I was shaken by the unexpected laws that hindered me from living in my own home on my own land. One road block after another finally led me to a family who graciously offered me their backyard to live in. Mathilda is now settled into Arizona life with her cypress siding and other echoes of home.”

To view the Fox Business segment, Google: “sarah trahan tiny house”

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Zydefunk Sat., Dec. 8, 2018 — BBC (Tallahassee) Zydefunk with Charlie Wooton featuring Arsene DeLay hails from Atlanta. 9:00 p.m. at Bradfordville Blues Club, 7152 Moses Lane, Tallahassee, FL 32309. Website: bradfordvilleblues.com Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=3&v=GdGISS_QJUw

Florida Cajun Zydeco Update!

Dikki Du & Zydeco Krewe Fri., Dec. 14, 2018 — Blue Rooster (Sarasota) 8:00 p.m. at Blue Rooster Restaurant, 1525 Fourth Street, Sarasota, FL. Phone 941-388-7539. Website: www.blueroostersrq.com/ Tickets available in advance for $15 near the band, $12 at the rear of the restaurant. Two tables will be removed to provide space for dancing.

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Tom Rigney PR Photo

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Donna The Buffalo Fri. 12/28 — City Winery (Atlanta) 8 p.m. citywinery.com/atlanta

Sat. 12/29 — Ponte Vedra Concert Hall (Ponte Vedra Bch, FL) 8 p.m. — pvconcerthall.com

12/30 and 12/31 — Skipper’s Smokehouse (Tampa)

8 p.m. w/Western Centuries — skipperssmokehouse.com

Wed. 1/2 — Green Parrot (Key West) greenparrot.com

Thurs. 1/3 — Riverwalk (Stuart, FL)

historicdowntownstuart.com/events

Florida Cajun Zydeco Update!

Chubby Carrier and the Bayou Swamp Band Fri. Jan. 25, 2019 — Skipper’s Smokehouse (Tampa) 8 p.m. — skipperssmokehouse.com

Sat. Jan. 26, 2019 — Harold’s Place (Naples, FL) gulfcoastinnnaples.com

Sun. Jan. 27, 2019 — Gumbo Fest, Shell Factory (N. Ft. Myers) 1 to 4 p.m. — shellfactory.com

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Atlanta Cajun Zydeco Association Dance Saturday, December 1, 2018

Gerard Delafose and the Zydeco Gators The Zydeco Gators was established by Gerard Delafose in 2007. Gerard is a 3rd generation zydeco musician. He is the grandson of the late great John Delafose and the nephew of the legendary Geno Delafose. General admission: $18 non-members.

Info: http://aczadance.org

Gerard Delafose

Bon Temps Social Club of San Diego at Balboa Park’s

December Nights — Dec. 7 & 8 The Bon Temps Social Club and Gator by the Bay Stage will be located in the Plaza de Panama (near the small fountain in the center of the plaza when coming across the bridge into Balboa Park). Entertainment starts with a parade at 5 p.m. on Friday.

Gator/Bon Temps booth and hospitality area will provide information about the annual Gator by the Bay CZ Festival in May, and The Bon Temps Social Club of San Diego dance and social events. Bands include San Diego favorites Theo and the Zydeco Patrol and the Bayou Brothers.

Schedule of this year’s December Nights bands:

www.icajunzydeco.com/event/decembernights