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"Charivari:
an exciting new sound in Cajun music rooted in tradition
while exploring cultural diversity.
These guys go at it like the world was a Mamou, Louisiana wedding
celebration on Mardi Gras day!" -Michael Doucet
Includes:
"The Monkey and the Fiddle," "The Woman I Never
Forgot," "Torchon's Reels," "I'm Lonely
Tonight," "I Don't Want to
Work," "Femmes," "Pascal's Egrets," "I
Want to Dance with Y ou,"
"Jolie Basset te," "Kissell's Reel," "La
Derniere Fois," "Arc de
Triomphe Two-Step"
Imagine
an old wooden house somewhere in the Cajun prairies of
Southwest Louisiana...it is surrounded by drooping live o aks and
stout pecans which are in turn surrounded by vast fields, some
dotted with cattle and some waving with crops...the sun is long gone
and is in tact on the verge of rising again...the lamp still burns in
the
kitchen and y ou would like to go to bed but your friends, a band of
noisy merry makers, refuse to leave. They sing and play their
instruments, bang on pots and pans, eat your food and drink your
whiskey, and the harder y ou try to get them to go the more they
seem resolved to stay. The sounds of their revelry drift out from
the house, through the trees, across the fields and reach just as far
as your nearest neighbor's home, whose lighted window lets you
know that he, too, hears the joyful racket...
Your guests are Charivari,
traditional perpetrators of noisemaking
and general rowdiness in Cajun Louisiana. The original function of
these all-night visitors was to prevent, in a teasing fashion, anyone
who was getting married for the second time from enjoying the
typical pleasures of a wedding night. But the meaning has expanded
to include any sort of chaotic house party in which the host, willing
or not, is prohibited trom determining how the night shapes up. When
the Charivari arrive on your doorstep, determined to make your
house into the center of their festivities, you will be in for a long
night of music and good times, no matter what type of refusal y ou
might make. They will not take no for an answer"
In
the case of this CD, the Charivari paying you a visit are a group
of musicians steeped in the soul of their Cajun tradition. Mitchell
Reed, though still a young man, is one of the greatest Cajun fiddlers
in Louisiana. Randy
Vidrine, who hails trom the town of Ville Platte,
has a voice that reaches back to the days before amplification, when
men sang in the highest realm of their range to get maximum volume
and power trom their voices. Randy sings straight trom the dust of
the prairie, trom the old house parties, where a good Charivari had to
rise above quite a din. Zach Huval is an innovative accordionist who
lets his fingers fly without reserve. He pumps the sound out of his
instrument, alternately growling in the low register and finding little
unseen flowers in the high end. Rounding out the group are Lois
Sprague on bass and Ben Goodwin on drums, who lay down a
relentless, churning groove throughout. To top it off, the group is
joined on this disc by several local musicians, whom y ou could
perhaps imagine
wandering along the dusty roads on their way home
trom various gigs, hearing the racket across the fields, and being
drawn over to join the party. Such luminaries as Michael Doucet, Sam
Broussard, Brazos Huval and Kevin Wimmer answered the call with
their soulful performances.
Dirk
Powell
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