Cajun
Lafayette, Louisiana
Photo: Rachel Adams
When the Pine Leaf Boys first appeared on the scene over 15 years ago, they were at the forefront of several exciting, young Cajun bands breathing new life into the music and bringing a high-energy sound to dance halls in French Louisiana. Hailed for playing “with an unabashed rock ’n’ roll energy conducive to the elbow-flying, hip-swiveling spirit on the dance floor” (Geoffrey Himes, New York Times), they shared the fiddle-and-accordion-driven sounds of Cajun music with a new generation while maintaining their Cajun music legacy. No longer in their twenties, the Pine Leaf Boys are now a seasoned band, recognized with four Grammy nominations. Yet, their passions remain the same—reviving and revitalizing forgotten Cajun classics, digging for songs “buried under a rock for decades,” but also reminding listeners that Cajun music is not frozen in time. As Wilson Savoy says, “Cajun music is exciting. It’s not dead. It’s evolving.”
Louisiana’s Cajuns descend from 17th-century French settlers to Acadia, a New France colony in eastern Canada, who were uprooted and deported by the British following the French and Indian War. Forced onto ships sailing south, half died on the voyage, but the survivors made their way to the protective isolation of the bayous and prairies of Southwest Louisiana. A distinctive Cajun culture emerged, including the blend of older French and Acadian music with country, western, blues and Caribbean influences. This fiddle-and-accordion-centered music is today is alive and well, and an emblem of Cajun culture worldwide.
The Pine Leaf Boys were founded in 2004 by accordionist Wilson Savoy, whose first love was boogie-woogie piano, inspired by Louisiana native Jerry Lee Lewis. Savoy received his first accordion from his father, legendary Cajun musician Marc Savoy, one of North America’s most respected makers of button accordions, who built it from the wood of a sassafras tree planted by Wilson’s grandfather. Guitarist Jon Bertrand, the resident cowboy from Louisiana’s prairies, adds high-spirited energy and swagger, while the full-throttle approach of drummer and singer Drew Simon evokes the freewheeling release of a working Saturday night in Lafayette. Bassist Thomas David was playing drums alongside his father in the Jambalaya Cajun Band by age eight, and as a teenager he was also playing zydeco, Cajun music’s Black French Creole counterpart. Fiddler Chris Segura began playing the fiddle at age four, appearing with Steve Riley on Songs of Six Families on Louisiana Public Television, later cofounding the wildly popular, Grammy-nominated Cajun band Feufollet.
The Pine Leaf Boys have released five studio albums, two of which were released on Valcour Records, Lafayette’s beloved Louisiana music label owned and operated by Wilson’s older brother Joel. When not performing nationally or touring as state-sponsored cultural ambassadors in the Middle East, Asia, and Eastern Europe, the Pine Leaf Boys make their homes in Lafayette, Louisiana. There in the heart of Acadiana, they can often be found playing with friends and delighting crowds young and old in the local dance halls.