William Bailey

Music of New Orleans

Professor Sakakeeny

26 April, 2016

Concert Report #3: David Doucet

For the final concert report I chose to see David Doucet, an artist from Lafayette

that I have some familiarity with being from the area. He’s more prominently known for

being a member of the grammy-winning group BeauSoleil with his brother Michael

Doucet (who’s a friend of my parents) and touring the world playing Cajun and Zydeco

music. In BeauSoleil, David plays the roles of guitarist and vocalist and he resumed

both positions for this show, but with the main difference of him being the main vocalist

rather than Michael. For this show, he wasn’t playing by himself, as the billing

suggested, but rather with three other musicians from various bands: Al Farp on the

fiddle and banjo, Taylor Smith on the upright bass, and Shaun Bertrand on the rhythm

guitar.

Like many other shows at the Columns, the mood of the evening was rather

relaxed with chairs set up throughout the room and a mainly much older crowd,

however there were more middle aged and younger audience members than previous

shows that I had seen here, which I would attribute to his local celebrity status, being

sonically distinct from New Orleans Music, as he did play cajun and zydeco music since

it seems to be what he knows best, and it being a festival week. Many of the patrons
were sitting with food or drink nearby and with friends they either brought with them or

made at the show. While it was not a dance party in the venue and most people stayed

in their seats from what I could see, the energy in the music was very obviously

affecting the spectators in different ways, from causing a select few to jump out of their

chairs and dance for a moment before returning, to the more average response of

yelling something along the lines of “Yea, you rite!” when the band played something

satisfactory or David sung something they recognized.

The music that they performed consisted exclusively of cajun folk music and

zydeco tunes, with the instruments playing in unison and on the beat and most songs

being very uptempo and dancehall ready. There was not much in the way of similarities

to traditional new orleans music, mainly because cajun music employs different types of

instruments and styles of playing to create different sounds. However, unlike traditional

cajun music, David did not break out the accordion for the songs, relying mainly on the

fiddle and his skilled guitar playing to make up for the sonic gap.

One of the first songs he played during his set was called Ya Momma and Ya

Daddy Threw Me Out, which started off with a quick walking bassline that was joined

very soon by the fiddle, rhythm and lead guitars. The rhythm guitar filled out the musical

base by playing the chord progression while the bass continued its procession for the

whole song. David himself on the lead guitar began to solo over the chord progression,

often using the chords themselves as the basis for his soloing. This soloing is a typical

stylistic tendency of music in New Orleans, but the instrumentation being mainly string

instruments took away from many other similar lines that could be drawn between the

two styles. After the introductory solo section, David accompnaied the rhythm guitarist in
playing the chords of the song, as well as singing a few lines in French before moving to

a second solo section. For this portion, the fiddle also took turns soloing with the guitar

and providing accompaniment for David’s licks when not playing the main solo section.

They played one more short vocal section before the final solo, which went very

similarly to the second one. Overall the song was very upbeat and the breaks for solos

were much longer than the vocal sections, the preference for instrumental solos being

very characteristic of New Orleans music, but the rest was firmly rooted in Cajun music.

Another song that they played was a much slower pace compared to their first,

but still upbeat enough to make you want to move along to the music. This one began

similarly to the other, with a walking bassline, but since the tempo was much slower it

seemed like it was actually walking instead of trying to sprint with the tempo. This song

also began with an instrumental intro and feature the fiddle and David both taking the

position of soloist, while the rhythm guitarist played out chords. This slight foray into

heterophony was interesting as they did not attempt it in many of their other songs and

played out very well between the distinct voicing of the guitar and the fiddle. After their

solo intro, they moved to a longer verse that David sung in French, and when

transitioning from intro to verse, it seemed as if the instruments got much quieiter in

order to allow for David to sing out (even though the event was miked, it could be a

vestige of cajun music requiring the singer to yell out over the instruments). The solos in

this song were not too different from each other and seemed to serve as an

instrumental chorus to the sung verses, giving David time to breathe and show off his

skills at improvisation within the idea of the song. Surprisingly, the fiddle took much
more of a backseat role in this song, almost never coming out after the introductory solo

portion that it shared with the guitar.

Overall, David Doucet had a very engaging, lively and interesting set, but it did

not share as many characteristics of New Orleans music as I thought it might, being that

he now lives (and often plays) in the city. For the most part it was straight up Cajun

music through and through, which is what he has been playing his whole life. The

energy that the show had was very invigorating and inspiring because most shows at

the Columns seem to be planned to be very relaxing and slower to allow for

conversation and for the music to fade into the background. While I myself did not

dance around in the hall, there were many time that I thought I would have, had I not

been trapped in my seat by other patrons.