Acadian Duo Makes laughs, Music

What happens when you combine classic folk instrurnents like acoustic guitars and harmonicas, with physical comedy, bilingual performances, foot-stomping, dancing, and a flare for vaudeville? You get Prince Edward Island's very own Acadian duo, Chuck and Albert. At any given Chuck and Albert show, you may see the pair dancing and singing traditional Acadian songs, all while playing instruments. Beyond the music, the first thing you'd notice at their show is the comedy. To understand Chuck and Albert's style may require a brief explanation of their heritage.

Chuck and Albert, Local 571 (Halifax, NS), share the same last name, Arsenault, but are not necessarily directly related, as there are just five main last names in Prince Edward Island. Chuck and Albert are Acadians, decedents of the French colonists who settled in eastern Canada, the area that is now known as Acadia. True Acadian's live in the eastern most part of Canada, in particular, Prince Edward Island. "Basically at any kitchen party you have lots of music, fiddling, singing," says Chuck about Acadian lifestyle. "And there's always lots of characters," he adds with a laugh. "Basically people have these parties to forget they're having such a tough go at it. It's a time for great celebration. Costumes are a big part of kitchen parties and house parties. They are music gatherings."

Out of those traditional kitchen and house parties stems Chuck and Albert. Their music is very visual, which is traditional in French cultures, like mime or vaudeville styling. They typically sing in French, songs the duo develops based on work by George Arsenault-a man, who in the ‘70s collected some 2,000 hours of locals singing family songs and passing on stories.

A lot of the songs or stories they find are not easily recognizable and don't have rhythms. They take words and stories, either from Prince Edward Island or from 400 years ago in France, and compose the music, melodies, and chords. They say about 80% of their act is based on traditional songs.

Chuck and Albert grew up on opposite sides of the island, and didn't meet each other until they were adults in the early '90s. Chuck went to teach music at a school on the Westside of the island where Albert was living. He jokes that Albert was the first person he met as he got out of his car on his first day at the school. "I didn't think much of him;' Chuck says with a laugh. They played in a couple of bands together, but didn't start their duo until 2004 when they were asked to put together a show for children. The pair decided to do something they've never done before. They thought comedy would be a great addition to their already established music abilities.

"That particular show was a bust," Chuck says. "It was the worst show we've done. It wasn't because the material was bad; we just didn't realize that the new direction took so much time:'

Over the next several months they worked on a show for the Confederation of the Arts at the National Theater. The Confederation asked that their performance be bilingual. The performance was a hit and it was nominated for a few awards. They hadn't planned to perform as a duo beyond that performance, but since it took so much time and money to put together the show at the National Theater, they decided to do some more shows.

"We realized no one wakes up in the morning and thinks: 'Man, I'd love to see a bilingual show,'" Chuck says. "So we had to rework our show, we had to scale things down to tour effectively and economically.' As they worked on their show and continued to tour, they developed their musical approach to comedy. "The great thing about music and comedy is that they are very universal languages," Chuck says. "The Acadian culture has lots of rhythm and lots of fun elements to the culture. We're pretty lucky to have such a breadth of repertoire."

Albert says he believes they are in a good place with their careers. "Everything we do, we try to do a little bit better,” Albert says. “We keep working hard at it; we are doing the amount of shows we planned to do and want to do. It keeps us hopping around pretty good. The duo plays roughly 60 shows a year and has performed in Canada, the US, and Europe. Albert says they'd like to tour Australia and New Zealand. "We're in a good place," he says. "If we were just starting out at where we are now, we'd be really buzzing. But we've been at this a while now, and so we're going to keep it up.'

They joke that people seem to like their performances because no one has walked out and no one has asked for their money back. Chuck and Albert have been AFM members for about 15 years. The Federation helps them with their paperwork for playing in the US. For videos of the duo visit the website: www.chuckandalbert.com.