Reborn on the bayou
Back up Highway 190 is Opelousas, a hotbed for zydeco, the rhythm & blues cousin of countrified Cajun. The low-ceilinged, dimly lit rural roadhouses where raucous, steamy zydeco thrives have provided real highlights in years past, but not this trip. Slim’s Y Ki Ki has closed up shop by midnight, and only a smattering of dancers make the floor at Richard’s. Folks just aren’t in the mood for zydeco’s typical exuberance and abandon, it would seem. Me neither, to be honest.
Sunday morning arrives, burning the bayou mist off the festival grounds. Festivals Acadiens is staged every year in Girard Park, its rambling paths and rolling hills randomly colonized by tents and awnings. Shade is definitely at a premium under the few smaller trees around the perimeter of the main stage dance area. One huge centrally located live oak spreads itself over the food booths, which offer a satisfying of range Cajun cooking: po-boys, jambalaya, catfish courtboullion, and ingenious uses for the humble crawfish — etouffe, au gratin, fettuccini, and baked into small bread loaves called pistolettes. It’s hearty peasant food done with amazing subtlety. Me, I favor the basics: foil-wrapped boudin and cracklins in a brown paper bag from Charlie T’s, and bread pudding with rum sauce for dessert.
This is ever the most genial festival anywhere. There’s a pervasive sense that this is how these folks live and celebrate life year-round, but for this particular weekend they just all come to the same place to do it. And though there is an unmistakably subdued undertone (and a lot more flags) here compared to previous years, the natives’ camaraderie and indomitable lust for life shows far stronger.
And nowhere more so than in the person of D.L. Menard, to whom this year’s fest is dedicated. Menard underscores the country elements of Cajun music; he is frequently characterized as the Cajun Hank Williams. This derives not only from his baying voice and sock-rhythm guitar, but also his authorship of some of the genre’s best-known songs.
He is in his element here, surrounded by comrades and old bandmates, in fact the same Louisiana Aces with whom he recorded the original version of his signature song “La Porte d’en Arriere” (“The Back Door”) in the 1950’s. (It’s a fine example of his Hankist songcraft: crowing over the revels that continually bring him home late via the back door, the singer finally finds himself entering the back door of the jailhouse.)
Menard has also fostered the careers of many next-generation players, including my personal fave, Horace Trahan. Menard has toured the world, and much of the world has returned to visit him and his wife Louella at their home in Erath, Louisiana, to hear music and drink coffee on their porch. Menard transcends the status of a regional or stylistic icon; he’s an international cultural ambassador. He’s earned recognition as a national treasure, whether his distinctive Cajun yawp is comprehended by the masses or not.
“No one knows what Cajuns are saying but other Cajuns,” says a young woman at Angelle’s Whiskey River Landing, my last stop in Acadia. Passing through Henderson, Louisiana, the road winds along through the swamp into apparent nothingness, until a quick hop over the levee leads to the entrance of a roadhouse on the edge of the Atchafalaya Basin. There’s a grassy bank for parking pickup trucks, a pier for docking houseboats and pontoon cruisers.
Angelle’s runs swamp tours during the day, and serves hot food and music on weekend nights; a big pot boils out on the porch, and chanky-chank rolls out the door and down to the water’s edge. Inside, the decor is early American swamp critter: ducks, turtles, javelina, a wall-mounted alligator skeleton. Huge picture windows afford a panoramic bayou view; my non-local status is quickly betrayed by an open fascination with the sight of mullet leaping into the air, splashing back down. (“It’s just what they do,” shrugs the woman.)
A band of perhaps twentysomethings, Damon Troy & Louisiana Beat, keeps a noisy room perpetually moving. I’m surprised when bartender Martha tells me that tonight is slow; the festival has drawn away many regulars. But these folks are not without a larger plan. “We all goin’ over to Randol’s from here; whyn’t you come along?”
Y’know, I’d love to…but I’m afraid my road points the other way just now; see you next time?
“Well, we’ll be here.”
They’ll be here. It is something to depend on in uncertain times, the way these people live and celebrate life. They will be here. After another 360-odd turns of the earth, perhaps a few turns around other dance floors, we should all be here.