LINER NOTES

Back in 1988, when Steve Riley dreamed of starting his own Cajun band, the Mamou Playboys were born. Nearly two decades and 10 CDs later, the Playboys are two-time Grammy nominees who have become the standard by which other Cajun bands are measured.

Warning — Riley is dreaming again. Dreaming about jamming with other players he admires. Musicians who squeeze in time during their own busy schedules, which include jaunts from the Burnaby Blues and Roots Festival in British Columbia. the L.L. Bean Summer Concert Series in Freeport, Maine and the Kennedy Center Millennium Stage in Washington, DC.

These musical friends are focused on going back to the roots, whether those roots are Cajun, Creole, zydeco, blues or whatever else gets their groove on. The songs can be in French, English or a combination of both.

Fans won’t have to worry if the Mamou Playboys are changing their style or if Riley is slipping back into his brief (praise the Lord!) big hair and earring days. This band isn’t the Mamou Playboys.

This is Racines Their name is French for roots, which immediately lets listeners know what to expect.

The band specializes in roots bayou music that swings with sounds from legends like Dewey Balfa and Clifton Chenier to swamp blues, the forgotten zydeco of the late Ambrose Sam (patriarch of the Sam Brothers 5, zydeco’s Jackson Five of the 1970s) and cajun fiddling with a seldom-heard banjo thrown in for lagniappe.

The songs aren’t the usual “classics,” recorded so much that Jolie Blonde is ready to jump in Les Flames D’Enfer so she won’t pass through The Back Door - again.

Riley’s fiery accordion style even plays second fiddle – literally. Five of this CD’s 15 songs are led by fiddles and are accordion-free, near-sacrilege in a land where squeezebox players are quarterbacks who date the head cheerleaders.

But Racines work because of musicians with deep talent, roots, musical and personal connections. Riley and fiddlers Kevin Wimmer and Mitch Reed share a bond of more than 20 years. Each was a student of the late Dewey Balfa, an evangelist of musical and cultural pride.

Riley was 15 when Balfa took Riley under his bow, teaching him the fiddle, dozens of French songs and musicianship that made the Balfa Brothers folk music idols at home and abroad. Wimmer, a native New Yorker and fiddler born into a family of classical musicians, moved to Louisiana after becoming enamored with Balfa and his soulful style.

In the 1990s, Wimmer worked to immortalize that Balfa style as a founder of the popular Cajun band, Balfa Toujours, which means “Balfa always.” He became a driving force behind the Red Stick Ramblers, a young swing band that sways with Bob Wills, Django Reinhardt, Clifton Chenier and other sounds of their parents and grandparents. Wimmer has even made a fiddle cameo on the F-bomb bonanza, Deadwood, a popular western series that airs weekly on HBO.

Despite his symphony experience and classical training on the cello and bass, Mitch Reed prefers the down home fiddling of Balfa, Dennis McGee and Canray Fontenot. Reed’s unmistakable style, considered one of a kind among his peers in south Louisiana, has shared the stage and studio with Dewey Balfa, Charivari, Cory McCauley, the Mamou Prairie Band and Balfa Toujours.

Reed remains in demand as an instructor at fiddling and folk music camps throughout the country. In 2006, the Grammy-winning Cajun band BeauSoleil brought Reed aboard as a full time bass player, allowing him to play with another one of his fiddling idols, Michael Doucet.

Chris Stafford, 18, is too young to have studied under Balfa. But as his accordion teacher, Steve Riley, instilled that Balfa knowledge, turning him into a pre-teen squeezebox master. Stafford further blossomed into a self-taught guitarist, talented enough to fill in for veterans like Sam Broussard, who played with rock icon Jimmy Buffet before his current stint with the Mamou Playboys.

In 1995, a 10-year-old Stafford and his 13-year-old fiddling friend, Chris Segura, founded Feufollet, a young band that was more than The Osmonds from Ville Platte. Their musical talent was only surpassed by their French fluency, which made them the toast of south Louisiana, Canada and beyond.

Drummer Glen Fields has provided rock-steady rhythms for the Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band, The Bluerunners and the Red Stick Ramblers, a band that he founded in 2000 in Baton Rouge with Linzay Young and Chas Justus. The Ramblers originally started as a party band playing around LSU, but have graduated to clubs and folk festivals around the country.

Fields helps get this Racines party started with the beat behind Cher Bebe, an accordion rocker from the late Sidney Brown. His beats remain steady throughout.

Riley's accordion is up to its usual prowess in Nathan Abshire's Gabrielle, Café Chaud, Crowley 2-Step, and Clifton Chenier's My Baby She's Gone to Stay (a.k.a. Mornin’ Train). Riley shows he’s no slouch on the zydeco triple-row accordion on I Hear You Knockin', a Lazy Lester blues number credited to Crowley recording legend J. D. Miller, and A Horse with No Shoes, a Keith Frank original which includes Frank's little brother, Brad, as a special guest on rubboard.

Brad also scratches out the rhythms on Boozoo Chavis’ Johnny Mal Cabri, Gone to the Country and Mornin’ Train.

But the twin fiddles of Wimmer and Reed clearly standout on this CD. Tunes and dances of yesteryear are resurrected on three medleys of Dennis McGee tunes, Marcantel Reel/Reed de Coquin, Reel Perdu/Fruge's Reel (with Dirk Powell on banjo), and Mazurka/Guilbeau Pelican/Waltz that Finished in the Corner of the Room.

Stafford shows off his lead, rhythm and lap steel guitar skills with rides on Gabrielle, I Hear You Knockin’, Mon Coeur Fait Plus Mal and Crowley 2-Step.

A special treat throughout the disc is Wimmer, who seldom sings when fiddling with Balfa Toujours and the Red Stick Ramblers. But Wimmer's gruff, Deadwood saloon, give-me-another-beer voice adds just the right touch to Johnny Mal Cabri, My Baby and A Horse with No Shoes.

Wimmer’s husky vocals further underscore the fact that young musicians can play old music that is respectful, fresh and exciting. While this CD pays tribute to the past, it isn’t a history project.

It’s a reminder that forgotten songs aren’t just for museums, professors and dusty record collections. In the right hands, old songs are just as vibrant as any tune with a modern tag.

Plus, The Back Door, Lacassine Special and Eunice Two Step aren’t the only classics that should make the natives dance. Dozens of old Cajun and Creole treasures from yesteryear are just waiting for musicians willing to dig beneath the surface and talented enough to inject new life into them. Racines fill both those bills.

Yes, Steve Riley is dreaming again. With Racines, he's watering our musical roots and sprouting another terrific band. We get to enjoy the flowers.


Herman Fuselier is a writer and broadcaster living in Opelousas, La.
He works as entertainment editor for the Lafayette Daily Advertiser and hosts the Bayou Boogie radio and TV shows, featuring south Louisiana music.