|
|
 |
CD Review and Concert Preview
|
| Click Here to go back. |
Providence Journal, CD Review and Concert Preview >>
By Rick Massimo
On their latest disc, Dominos, Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys continue to simultaneously preserve and enrich the traditions of Cajun music.
Accordionist-singer-fiddler Riley has said elsewhere that the title of the record reflects "the domino effect people have on one another . . . particularly the effect the older generation of musicians has had on us and the effect we are now having on the younger generation."
On the record, Riley and his bandmates, singing almost all in French, mix original songs about the Cajun tradition ("Dominos") and life on the road ("Pays des etrangers / Land of Strangers," ending with a nicely unresolved chord) with a classic D.L. Menard two-step ("La vie d'un vieux garcon / The Bachelor's Life").
There's also an a cappella song first recorded in 1934 ("Les clefs de la prison / The Keys to the Prison") and the album's haunting centerpiece, "Marie mouri / Marie Has Died," with lyrics dating from before the Civil War by a Louisiana slave named Pierre set to music by Playboys fiddler David Greely.
Dominos has more of a back-porch feel than the band's previous disc, 2003's Bon Reve. "The guitar plays a big part in making the sound of this band," says Riley, and guitarist Steve Broussard, whose electric guitar was a centerpiece on the previous record, is mostly on acoustic guitar here.
Dominos also sees the Playboys continuing their appreciation of Creole music, with a medley of Ardoin-family songs and a tune from Canray Fontenot. "We love bluesy-sounding stuff, and Creoles are responsible for Cajun music being as bluesy as it is. We've got a lot of friends who are Creole and play Creole and zydeco music, and it's hard not to be influenced by that. It's such cool stuff, you know?"
Of Fontenot's "Coulet Rodair," Riley says, "There's no set pattern to that tune. Each vocal is phrased differently, and it's just funky the way those tunes are put together. And we like messing with that."
At the same time, on Dominos Riley and the Playboys take Cajun music forward without overtly grafting a second influence onto it. "It's not a hybrid, like Cajun-country," Riley says. ". . . I think we've gotten better at taking all the innovations and making it work without making it a hybrid something-or-other."
Dominos has been released as a DualDisc, with the regular CD on one side and on the other a short documentary DVD on the band, in which they perform some of the Dominos songs live in a studio and some new and older songs in a nightclub. Riley says that the DualDisc was the idea of the Playboys' record company, Rounder. It's a first for both the label and the Cajun genre. "It gives people an idea of where we're coming from and what the music's about," Riley says.
The highlights of the DVD side are the interview segments, in which Riley and the band (especially Greeley) explain the importance of Cajun music, of preserving it and of growing it. The music "is like a tree in the backyard," Greeley explains. "You want it to grow; you don't want it to mutate. You don't want it to grow arms and teeth and eat the kids."
Riley lives in Lafayette, La., which late last summer received an influx of people displaced by Hurricane Katrina. Riley says that life has returned somewhat to normal, albeit with quite a few more people around. "The population has increased here, and you can always spot the people from New Orleans, because they're always freakier than the people from here. They're city folks. . . . "It's great in some ways for us, because we can go down the road and hear a lot of great bands from New Orleans . . . "The population here has grown a bit, but it's fine. We enjoy having those people here, and I think they enjoy it here." A lot of people, he says, have bought houses and intend to stay, though some have moved on: "I'm just judging from how bad the traffic is, how full the restaurants are."
Riley's been playing in Rhode Island since he was a young player in Dewey Balfa's band, and he and the Playboys have been coming to the Ocean State since they started in 1987. "It's always been a really good hotbed for fans of Louisiana music," Riley says, going back to Balfa's 1964 performance at the Newport Folk Festival, possibly the first performance of Cajun music outside of Louisiana. "It's always fun, and we always look forward to the Mardi Gras Ball."
The 14th Annual Cajun & Zydeco Mardi Gras Ball will be held Saturday night at Rhodes-on-the-Pawtuxet, 60 Rhodes Place (off Broad Street), Cranston, from 7 p.m. to midnight. Geno Delafose and French Rockin' Boogie and Balfa Toujours will also play. 02/24/06 >> go there
|
| Click Here to go back. |
|
 |
|
|
|
