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The Savoy Doucet Cajun Band

The Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band, arguably Louisiana’s finest, are cooking up a storm, Marc’s accordion drones and chuckles like a chicken in the hands aof a friendly farmer, Michael Doucet’s sawing fiddle soars through an ecstatic perpetuum mobile, and Ann Savoy, accompanying herself with a steady chug-chug-chug on an acoustic guitar, sings plangently in French of blighted crops and faithless lovers and other jolly themes..”
- The London Times


The Savoy Doucet Cajun Band play honed down, hard core Cajun music laced with an earthy sensuality. Though the old tunes have been revived and returned to a new life intensity in their hands, the Savoy Doucet Cajun band doesn't play from a studied angle. The three musicians in the band, Marc and Ann Savoy and Michael Doucet, each hold their own as strong individual group members, making up a tight intense sound.

Savoy-Doucet has been performing and recording together since 1977, recording five CDs on the Arhoolie label. They have traveled all over the world, appearing in many prestigious venues, such as the Newport Folk Festival, the Berlin Jazz Festival, the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes at the Smithsonian Institution, the National Geographic Concert Series, even the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, England, to name a few. The nation has rewarded the trio for their authenticity and expertise by taking them on numerous state department tours, featuring them in national festivals, awarding Marc Savoy the highest honor in the country for traditional artists, the honorable National Heritage Fellowship Award. Michael Doucet was awarded a Grammy award and Ann was awarded the Botkin Book Award for her definitive book on the history of Cajun music, and she recently appeared as a musician in the film "Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood."

Although the Savoy Doucet Cajun Band insists upon maintaining a more acoustic approach to Cajun music the band can hold its own amongst Cajun music lovers everywhere. In fact, the band loves seeing how much power and sound they can get out of just three instruments.

Each member of the band can play numerous instruments and sometimes trade instruments during stage performances. Sometimes the group demonstrates the way Cajun music has evolved by demonstrating the early double fiddle - triangle sound or the solo accordion - fiddle sound. Early French ballads are added to the program to show other historic elements prevalent in early southwest Louisiana. Between the songs the Cajun French poetry of the songs is often briefly translated by Ann so that the feeling can be better understood. Their repertoire is chosen carefully, popular dancehall tunes interspersed with soulful ballads, fiddle or vocal duets, or blues. The songs show the spectrum of Cajun life from sorrow and lost love to nonsense and the joy of dance.

The Savoy Doucet Cajun Band brings the raw energy of the dancehalls of southwest Louisiana to the stage, peppered with humorous and informative anecdotes about life on the Louisiana prairies.

Catching this expert, unpretentious trio is about the closest most of us will ever get to hearing an authentic Cajun bash on a screened-in bayou porch. The Savoy Doucet Cajun Band scrapes, strums, and wails its way through genre chestnuts and in-the-traditional originals with an uncommonly warm, congenial virtuosity.

-Chicago Tribune

“Marc, a master of the button accordion, astutely mixed emphatic chords with rippling arpeggios, and Ann, the rhythm guitar player, used her gorgeous voice to add a rare lyricism to what is primarily a social dance music.”

 

- Washington Post

Savoy Doucet Cajun Band moves back several decades to the sources of today's styles. Many of the songs might have disappeared completely if they had not been revived by these dedicated musicians. Their acoustic trio has a diverse, fresh, and lively sound, with spirited solos and intuitive interplay.

 

- Atlantic Monthly

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