DOORS: 6:30pm  |  SHOW: 7:30pm

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ABOUT THE ARTIST

Genre: Cajun 

For the past 42 years, BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet has been making some of the most potent and popular Cajun music on the planet. Born out of the rich Acadian ancestry of its members, and created and driven by bandleader Michael Doucet’s spellbinding fiddle playing and soulful vocals, BeauSoleil is notorious for bringing even the most staid audience to its feet. BeauSoleil’s distinctive sound derives from the distilled spirits of New Orleands jazz, blues rock, folk, swamp pop, Zydeco, country and bluegrass, captivating listeners from the Jazz and Heritage Festival in New Orleans, to Carnegie Hall, then all the way across the pond to Richard Thompson’s Meltdown Festival in England.

For their most recent studio release, 'From Bamako to Carencro', BeauSoleil teamed up with Nashville- based roots music label Compass Records. The title alludes to the cultural and migratory connection between Bamako, in Mali, West Africa, and Louisiana (symbolized in name by the Lafayette, LA. suburb of Carencro), a connection that draws a sonic bloodline back to BeauSoleil’s roots. On the album’s 11 tracks, the band performs with a resounding authenticity all the while bringing a refreshed playfulness to the genre—the fiddle, flat-picked guitar and accordion carry driving melodies over the two-step and waltz dance beats characteristic of their Cajun and Zydeco music, but not without the country, jazz and blues leanings that informed the genre in the 1920s. They channel the godfathers of other music as well by including a Cajun/La La- style reimagining of James Brown’s classic 1962 Live at the Apollo version of “I’ll Go Crazy” and a swing version of John Coltrane’s tune-de-force “Bessie’s Blues.” Guitarist David Doucet even tucks an occasional Lester Flatt-style bluegrass G-run into his highly melodic guitar solos.

Since becoming the first Cajun band to win a GRAMMY with L’amour Ou La Folie (Traditional Folk Album – 1998) and then a second Grammy in 2010, Live at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, BeauSoleil has garnered many accolades, including twelve GRAMMY nominations, the latest being their 2009 release Alligator Purse.

“We’ve recorded a lot of albums, yet we always seem to come up with new songs saying things that haven’t been said,” comments bandleader Michael Doucet, “The diversity is really what excites me about this record – it’s nothing like we’ve done before and the songs are played only as we could play them. And it’s not just your smiling ‘let’s go eat some crawfish,’ Cajun album. We’re getting deeper into the layers in the psyche of the culture. It’s maturation.” The tracks taken from the album title, “Bamako,” a track contributed by the esteemed trombonist Roswell Rudd as a tribute to the people of Mali, and “Carencro,” a story about two French Louisiana lovers with bad timing and murderous intentions, again support Doucet’s message that “it takes all kinds to make a culture’s history survive.”

Though fascinated by music of all kinds, Michael Doucet is defined by his deep connection with, and dedication to, the music of the sacred French-Cajun culture. A Folk Arts Apprenticeship from the National Endowment of the Arts spurred Doucet to seek out every surviving Cajun musician and learn from them in person; he studied genre fathers Dewey Balfa, Dennis McGee, Sady Courville, Luderin Darbone, Varise Connor, Canaray Fontenot and many others, even inspiring some to return to publicly performing. In 2005 the National Endowment of the Arts again recognized Doucet’s integral involvement with the Cajun world, awarding him the esteemed National Heritage Fellowship as well as the United States Artists Fellowship in 2007.Doucet has gained acclaim by developing his own flavor of Cajun music and he and his band represent many ‘firsts’ for the genre. Early on they focused on the lead and twin fiddle styles of the originals of Acadian folk music over the more popular 1920s adoption of the German diatonic accordion. They performed with the communal integrity characteristic of early Cajun music, choosing to perform unplugged like a group of friends playing together in a Louisiana living room, rather than plugging in. They broke ground as the first band to feature an acoustic guitar as the lead instrument, replacing the lead accordion or steel guitar. They were the first to include the frottoir, the rub board borrowed from Cajun music’s Zydeco cousin, and they were the first to feature a female vocalist. All of these innovations were fueled by Doucet’s determination to rejuvenate Cajun and zydeco music, breathing into it a new relevance.

FAQs

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Are there ID or minimum age requirements to enter the event? Unless otherwise indicated, all of our shows are all ages. Please bring a valid ID

What are my transportation/parking options for getting to and from the event? There is plenty of metered parking along both Dempster St. and Chicago Ave., and meters do not need to be fed after 9pm. Residential street parking is free after 6pm Monday through Saturday. Street parking is free on Sunday. SPACE is located one block east of the Dempster Purple Line Stop. 

What can I bring into the event? SPACE has a full bar with an exciting array of cocktails and an extensive beer list. While we do not serve food in our venue, customers are welcome to bring in pizza from Union, the restaurant up front. No outside food or beverages are allowed inside.

How can I contact the organizer with any questions? For questions regarding your order, please email boxoffice@evanstonspace.com or call 847.492.8860.

What's the refund policy? All tickets are non-refundable.