We are sorry to say that this show has been cancelled due to concern of coronavirus. The safety and care of our patrons, performers and staff are our main priority during this challenging time. We will continue to monitor and update you via email and the front page of our website as we navigate this crises.
As the leader of the Grammy Award-winning ensemble BeauSoleil, fiddler Michael Doucet has been in the vanguard of the Cajun cultural revival for more than four decades, earning an international following for an almost lost body of music. Doucet was named a NEA National Heritage Fellow in 2005. In 2014 he joined his longtime friend, Bay Area fiddler master Tom Rigney and his turbo charged band Flambeau, for a series of gigs, a rekindled connection that led to the acclaimed 2016 release Cajun Fandango. Inspiring each other to astounding feats of fiddling, they explore an eclectic array of roots music, including Cajun two-steps, waltzes and rockin’ blues.
Read what the critics are saying:
“For roots music fans, “Cajun Fandango” is music nirvana. Whoever decided to bring these two great artists together deserves an award of some kind. Hopefully, they will do it again soon.” GRAHAM CLARKE, BLUES BYTES
Michael Doucet has been the premier Cajun fiddle player of the past several decades. Originally from Lafayette, Louisiana, he has led his band, Beausoleil, for more than forty years (winning two Grammys and eight Grammy nominations along the way) and has taken Cajun music out of Louisiana and put it on the stages of the world. He has both preserved the music of his culture and expanded its horizons. The inheritor of a great tradition of Cajun fiddlers such as Dennis McGee and Canray Fontenot, he is also a composer and songwriter whose compositions have broadened and deepened the rich vein of South Louisiana music. A dynamic force of nature on the violin, he is a constantly inventive and compelling soloist.
Tom Rigney has, over the past several decades, become one of the premier blues and roots music violinists in the world. After fifteen years at the helm of the Swamp Rock band The Sundogs, he put together his current band–Tom Rigney and Flambeau–in 2000 and has toured and recorded extensively ever since. A prolific composer and songwriter, he has released more than a dozen CDs of original songs and instrumental pieces since 2000. His range as a composer runs from Cajun two-steps to Blues to roots Rock and Roll to heartbreakingly beautiful ballads and waltzes. His three blues violin CDs all climbed to Number 1 on the XM/Sirius Satellite Radio Bluesville Chart, and his recordings with Flambeau have gotten countless spins from Americana programmers all over the US and Canada. His high-energy, virtuosic playing and his commanding stage presence are hallmarks of Rigney’s performing style.
Doucet and Rigney, old friends since early Beausoleil/Sundogs days, had been intending to collaborate on a recording for more than a decade, and in 2016 they finally did it! Backed by a stellar group of musicians, including all the members of Flambeau and several special guests, these two virtuoso violinists spent a week in the studio playing spontaneously off of each other while the tape rolled (so to speak…) and almost literally burned down the house in the process. The spirit of their interplay fills these tracks with joy.
The band cooks up a storm, the grooves are guaranteed to get you up off the couch, and Doucet and Rigney tear it up in a spontaneous, virtuosic, deeply musical, and completely irresistible way. The rich sound of the two violins and the spectacular interplay of these two roots music masters provide a unique sound and an unforgettable listening (and dancing) experience.
