Festival International
Lafayette, LA, April 25 - 28, 1996

Festival International, held in the epicenter of Cajun/Zydeco music, celebrated its tenth anniversary with spectacular pageantry of world music complemented with Acadiana's abundant music scene. Termed as the "best free music festival of the South," it's also one of the best of its kind in America. Over thirty groups performed on four stages spread throughout Lafayette's downtown.

This year's theme was "Carnival du Monde" (World Carnival); the equivalent of Mardi Gras, a festive time where many cultures have their last hurrah before the Lenten season begins. In keeping with the theme, several carnival groups performed, including Martinique's impressive Tanbou Bo Kannal. This 35 piece ensemble wore either white or yellow robes with multicolored strips of cloth streaming from the sides. Three - fourths of the group were percussionists, with a handful of them drumming a horizontal log known as a "Ti Bois" (little wood); the rest played horns. Long medleys were played as the group moved through Antilles carnival songs, nursery rhymes and popular zouk songs.

Equally notable of the carnival genre was Les Mecenes from French Guyana. Their sound was definitely in the spirit of the islands; a rolling rhythmic feel with a stellar horn section featuring piercing trombone and clarinet, indispensable for their biguines, Creole mazurkas, and carnival rides.

Among those not carnival per se but similar in spirit was Loketto, formerly of Zaire, that came out of the Paris soukous explosion. Led by Aurius Mabel, this act featured a trio of vocalists that had the crowd waving arms and swaying hips in unison. At times each singer would jump high and fake a fall, then rise unscathed and later there was a simulated three - way brawl during a mesmerizing seben that transitioned back into their dance routine. During the finale, people were pulled out of the audience to dance on stage while others filled the stage on their own initiative.

On the local front, Zydeco's Thomas Fields ended his torrid performance drenched in sweat to a crowd that nearly refused to let the band off stage. Fiddler Hadley Castille, guitarist son Blake and squeezeboxer Mark Meier played enchanting Cajun tunes and introduced two whiz - kids on accordion, Jason Bergeron, 10, and Chris Stafford, 8.

In perhaps a glimpse of next year's theme, "The Celtic Connection In Cajun Music," a couple of French - speaking Celtic groups enthralled audiences. France's Lorient Interceltique Ensemble played slow aires, wedding tunes and marches from Brittany with fiddles, accordion, harp, bagpipes and the ancient ocarina.

But it was Barachois, a lovable quartet of Acadiens from Prince Edward Island, Canada, who delivered the most entertaining set of the festival. Their Celtic music was exhilarating from the outset, with plenty of surprises sprinkled in. Like Cape Breton fiddler Natalie MacMaster, Louise Bergeron wowed everyone by step - dancing and fiddling simultaneously. Explaining that Canada was heavily co - op based, fiddler Albert Arsenault selected members of the audience to became the co - op percussion unit. Little drum hats labeled "co - op" were worn by the participants which Arsenault humorously drummed the tops of. The left - most "victim" wore a yellow safety helmet with a symbol attached. Arsenault struck this the hardest as the crowd howled at the blow's unexpectancy and the good - natured participant's comical grimace.

Closing the proceedings was Boston - based soukous band Sankai who filled in when Zaire's Les Quatre Etoiles canceled due to immigration hassles. Yet a significant set to witness, guitarist Fellyko Tshikala has assembled a cast of white musicians that play with a true soukous feel. With his wah - wah and distortion attacks during a seben, soukous experts herald him as the most innovative force since soukous founder Franco.- Dan Willging (Denver, CO)

Fingerstyle guitarist Muriel Anderson hatched the idea for her "All Star Guitar Nights" a couple of years ago while sitting around a hotel swimming pool in Nashville during a meeting of the Chet Atkins Appreciation Society. She decided to bring the cooperative and collaboratory spirit of those meetings to the public, starting last year. For the first of these events in Chicago, Anderson assembled an impressive group of colleagues: French instrumentalist Jean - Felix LaLanne (Anderson's frequent duet partner), Nashville session veteran John Knowles, British folk - rock graduate Lawrence Juber, flatpicking master Steve Kaufman, Chicago area veteran Ed Hall, and avant - garde open tuning/tapping phenomenon Preston Reed. The show proceeded as two round robins separated by a break. For the first half, Anderson was joined by Juber, Knowles, and LaLanne, with whom she performed an astonishing duet on "Nola" to open the show, and later performed the andante segment from Anderson's "Symphony For a Country Gentleman." Knowles performed several jazz - inflected originals, notably "Amanda from Barbados," which he composed for a never - released Chet Atkins - George Benson duet album. Juber was the only member of the first round to play with steel strings, and plugged his guitar in for several bouncy originals and the lovely cover of "Little Wing" that closed out the first half.

Anderson returned with Kauffman, Hall, and Reed after the break, dedicating her finger cramping "It Never Gets Easier" to her guitar students. Kaufman, the night's sole plectrum wielder, played a bluegrass version of "Greensleeves" and later sang Phil Harris' "That's What I Like About the South." Hall opened with a pulsating Merle Travis style arrangement of the theme from Dragnet. Anyone nodding off in the audience was brought to attention by Reed's three numbers, beginning with the appropriately titled "Blasting Cap" on which he tapped, drummed on, and generally wrenched new and unusual sounds from his beautiful, amazingly unscarred Taylor Guitar. After his first piece, Anderson quipped, "Preston obviously never took Guitar One at the Old Town School!" in reference to his idiosyncratic tendency to fret his guitar overhand with his left arm.

The entire troupe marched back onstage for a mass closing jam that incorporated "Happy Birthday" (a surprise for birthday boy Kaufman) and Juber's injection of the Beatles' "Birthday." - Michael Parrish (St. Charles, IL)

It's hard to believe it's been 10 years since the Pogues first caused a stir on the British folk scene, winning several of the top honors as well as the all - around worst group in Folk Roots' first - ever readers poll. Like many, I wondered if the group would survive the departures of key members like Shane MacGowan, Jimmy Fearnley, Terry Woods and Phil Chevron. This concert is a good indication they're here to stay.

Truth be told, I never liked the Pogues as a live act. Even when he was at his strongest as a songwriter, turning out such material as "A Pair of Brown Eyes," "Fairytale of New York," and "Rainy Night in SoHo," MacGowan was a terrible performer, and the reason was no secret: drink. On stage, he often could barely stand, barely pronounce the brilliant words he had written. Instead, he would shriek and gargle and drink entire bottles of cheap whiskey in the course of a couple of hours. It was sad and sickening to watch.

The new Pogues are a different story, a great roots - rock act in which every member pulls his weight. Not only is MacGowan's absence not a liability, it's a relief. The band still draws on its ten - year store of MacGowan - penned songs; the concert featured "Sally MacLennane," "Turkish Song of the Damned," "Streams of Whiskey," and other Pogues favorites. Spider Stacy's voice was entirely adequate to the Pogues' sound, and Jem Finer sang lead a few times. In addition, Jem Finer and Andrew Ranken have emerged as songwriters of great promise. Finer in particular, with the Rabelaisian "Tosspint" and the gritty "Oretown," contributed notably. However, I felt like booing Ranken's song "Amadie," which shows he knows nothing about Amede Ardoin, whose life story the song distorts. The Clobberer redeemed himself by emerging from behind the drum kit to sing a booming, gravelly "Star of the County Down" that invoked the spirit of Van Morrison.

Instrumentally, the Pogues are at the top of their form, despite the loss of Woods, Chevron and Fearnley a year or so ago. The new members Jamie Clarke, David Coulter and James McNally added whistles, keyboards, mandolin, guitar, accordion, and lots more. Finer played banjo, saxophone, and pretty good hurdy - gurdy; I bet it's the first time a wheel fiddle's been heard at the Troc! The now ubiquitous and in this case superfluous didgeridu made a brief appearance as well. Ranken's drums and Darryl Hunt's bass kept everything moving along nicely. It all added up to a brash rock and roll sound with touches of Irish, English, Continental and Cajun music that represents a new and impressive maturity for the band. - Steve Winick (Philadelphia, PA)

Leon Rosselson may not have invented the topical song tradition in England there were all those medieval bards and such but he's been crafting them for so long that it can seem that way. Since his first recordings in 1962, he has combined an ardent humanism, a well - directed scorn toward the rich and pretentious, and an ironic sense of humor to make powerful points without ever being too strident or glib. As such, he epitomizes a part of folk tradition that seems to have been largely bypassed in the recent American singer/songwriter boom songs that come out of conscience rather than ego. He wrapped up the East Coast portion of a short North American spring tour with a Sunday night show before a nearly full house at Club Passim in Cambridge.

Introducing himself as coming from the U.K., "where all the sheep are radioactive and all the cows are mad," he started off with "The Neighbours' Cat," a cheerful satire of suburban life, and followed with "The Heartening Tale of John Pratt," an acidic look at the heartless career of what he described as "a composite Tory." On stage Rosselson is an intense man who projects a piercing professorial gaze during the serious songs, a sly grin during the lighter ones, and a droll sense of humor in his introductions. He's a capable fingerstyle guitarist as well to accompany the sometime complicated twists of melody his songs take.

During his two sets, Rosselson frequently touched on serious subjects like the World War II writings of an executed Jewish partisan in "The Song of Martin Fontasch," or escalating paranoia towards immigrants in a dark fable called "Intruders." He balanced the mood with lighter works such as the misfit love song "She Was Crazy, He Was Mad," and a couple clever pieces from his children's album, like "Skin," which explains skin's usefulness for keeping your innards inside. He sang about eccentric dreamers too, as in "Barney's Epic Homer" (not a baseball song!), a narrative of a man whose numbing job is "turning little piggies into plastic - wrapped sausages," who after hours builds giant backyard sculptures. The audience clearly included a lot of longtime fans who sang along enthusiastically when prompted, and helped with the words when he had a memory lapse while honoring a request for the revisionist religious narrative "Stand Up For Judas."

He wrapped things up with two of his best - known songs, "Bringing The News From Nowhere" and an audience chorus version of the much - covered populist anthem "The World Turned Upside Down," introducing the latter with the wry observation that St. George's Hill, the site of the 1649 Diggers uprising, is now an expensive neighborhood of mock - Tudor houses. As he stood on the edge of the small stage and acknowledged the applause, I thought of a comment he had made earlier in the show: "They're all love songs, in a way." - Tom Nelligan (Waltham, MA)