Savoy Family Cajun Band

Carrying on the tradition, The Savoy Family Cajun Band are from Eunice, Louisiana, USA. They play honed down, hard-core Cajun music laced with an earthy sensuality. Though the old tunes have been revived and returned to a new life intensity in their hands, the Savoy Family Cajun band doesn’t play from a studied angle. The musicians in the band, Marc and Ann Savoy and their sons Joel and Wilson, each hold their own as strong individual group members, making up a tight intense sound.

Marc and Ann, as the Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band, have been performing and recording together since 1977, recording five CDs on the Arhoolie label. They have travelled all over the world, appearing in all the most prestigious venues, such as the Newport Folk Festival, the Berlin Jazz Festival, the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes at the Smithsonian Institution, the National Geographic Concert Series, even the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, England, to name a few. The nation has rewarded them for their authenticity and expertise by taking them on numerous state department tours, featuring them in national festivals, awarding Marc Savoy the highest honour in the country for traditional artists, the honourable National Heritage Fellowship Award. The couple recently appeared on the PBS series “American Roots”, and Ann wrote the chapter on Cajun music in the book that accompanied the series which was published by Rolling Stone Press. Ann and son Joel recently appeared in the film “Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood” and they perform three songs on the Warner Brothers soundtrack. Ann was awarded the Botkin Book Award for her definitive book on the history of Cajun music.

Although the Savoy Family Cajun Band insists upon maintaining a more accoustic approach to Cajun music the band can hold its own amongst Cajun music lovers everywhere. In fact, the band loves seeing how much power and sound they can get out of just four instruments. Each member of the band can play numerous instruments and sometimes trade instruments during stage performances. Sometimes the group demonstrates the way Cajun music has evolved by demonstrating the early double fiddle - triangle sound or the solo accordion - fiddle sound. Early French ballads are added to the program to show other historic elements prevalent in early southwest Louisiana. Between the songs the Cajun French poetry of the songs is often briefly translated by Ann so that the feeling can be better understood.Their repertoire is chosen carefully, popular dancehall tunes interspersed with soulful ballads, fiddle or vocal duets, or blues. The songs show the spectrum of Cajun life from sorrow and lost love to nonsense and the joy of dance.

The Savoy Family Cajun Band brings the raw energy of the dancehalls of southwest Louisiana to the stage, peppered with humourous and informative anecdotes about life on the Louisiana prairies.