BeauSoleil Avec Michael Doucet

Nov. 27, 2015

It’s intriguing that BeauSoleil bills themselves as “with Michael Doucet” because it’s hard to think of BeauSoleil without Doucet, the bandleader whose instinctive, emotive vocals and standout fiddle playing are the heart of this wide-ranging group of top-shelf devoted players. BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet has spent the past 40 years solidifying their place as a must-listen band. The late, great composer, pianist and New Orleans legend Allan Toussaint called their music “honest.” Prairie Home Companion’s Garrison Keillor deemed them

“the best Cajun band in the world.” This giddy mix of New Orleans jazz, swamp pop, Zydeco, bluegrass and country got its start from Doucet’s own roots.

“Growing up, we called Cajun music French music,” Doucet said. “It was more intimate back then, like music you’d play on your back porch, ballads and songs sung by friends.”

Then television arrived on the scene and, with it, pop and rock, which found their way into the traditional sounds.

“Everything got all blended together,” Doucet explained.

By that time, proper Cajun music, from the heart of Louisiana, had been entrenched in his musical soul. Doucet had been playing music since he was 4 years old.

“Any kind of music,” he said, “and Cajun music wasn’t a big deal because, for us, it was just what was normal.”

He grew up speaking both English and French and, once he started performing with bands, eventually working his way into what would become BeauSoleil, he found himself pursuing something of a musical mission.

“I thought, we don’t want to lose these stories and sounds,” he said. “As people left us, their songs and tales would go with them and I realized that we couldn’t let this happen.”

BeauSoleil began expanding on their initial sound.

“It just grows as you go,” Doucet said.

“There’s plenty of traditional jazz and lots of blues in the Delta. But there are also lots of different popular songs that strike a bell.”

Calling himself a “music collector,” he explained that BeauSoleil found its path early on, although, every once in a while, they’d decide to take a different musical route, and that’s how their sound became something truly unique. Their repertoire encompasses hundreds of traditional Cajun, Zydeco and Creole songs, taken beyond the songs’ own limits by BeauSoleil’s inventive additions of blues, rock, pop and jazz elements. Sometimes they sing in French, sometimes in English — sometimes both — often changing things up in the same song.

“We are always working on new music and, with our music, you’ve gotta move or you’re dead!” Doucet laughed.

Their concerts are just as full of life and as energetic as they’ve always been. This year, the band is on a reaffirming tour, celebrating their 40th anniversary with diverse, everchanging setlists, which Doucet said they don’t even write until they arrive in each town and get a feel for the area and the people attending their show.

Thirty albums and two Grammy Awards later, after appearances on everything from the aforementioned “Prairie Home Companion” to Late Night with Conan O’Brien, Doucet observes they’re a band in a changing music business scene. Their solution? To ensure BeauSoleil leans even more on their founding element: live performance, in front of people who can see, as much as hear, what their sound is all about and what its history means.

“I think it’s always better to see us live,” Doucet said. “Plus, now anyone with a Mac and Pro Tools can make a record, so records aren’t as special as they used to be. That, though, just made playing live a lot more special to me.”

BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet will be in concert at The Dennos Museum Center Milliken Auditorium on Saturday, Dec. 5 at 8pm. For tickets, visit dennosmuseum.org or call (800) 836-0717. For more information on the band, visit facebook.com/ BeauSoleilCajunBand