The Battle of the Cajun Festivals

Warfare Cajun-style comes to Greater Los Angeles this weekend with two competing outdoor music festivals. The main combatants aren’t the performers but the promoters: two former partners who now get along about as well as a couple of alligators snapping at each other in a swamp.

On the face of it, two Cajun music festivals at the same time, in the same market, makes about as much sense as serving up a bowl of gumbo with a side order of gumbo.

Nevertheless, to the north, at the John Anson Ford Theatre on Saturday and Sunday, the second annual Hollywood Cajun & Zydeco Festival will feature a touring package of acts called the Louisiana Cajun Zydeco Revue. Topping the bill, which is the same both days, is accordionist Rockin’ Sidney, composer of “(Don’t Mess With My) Toot Toot,” the most popular contemporary Cajun song.

To the south, at the Olympic Velodrome on the Cal State Dominguez Hills campus in Carson, the second annual “Original” Los Angeles Cajun and Zydeco Festival will present nine bands over two days. Michael Doucet & Beausoleil, one of the most innovative and acclaimed Cajun groups, headlines Saturday; Buckwheat Zydeco, the only zydeco act recording for a major label (Island), tops the bill Sunday.

Promoting the Hollywood festival is Roy Hassett, a successful carnival operator who runs the Ford Theatre under a long-term lease with its owner, Los Angeles County. Hassett’s rival at the Velodrome is Franklin Zawacki, whose long love affair with things Cajun prompted him eight years ago to begin promoting the nation’s only Cajun festival outside of Louisiana--in Rhode Island, where he’s from. Zawacki is promoting the Velodrome festival from a headquarters in Orange County.

In 1986, Hassett attended Zawacki’s Cajun festival, which annually draws about 10,000 people to the country village of Escoheag, R.I., over the Labor Day weekend, and proposed that they team up for a similar, annual event in Los Angeles. Hassett would provide the venue, Zawacki would use his close relationships with top Cajun musicians to provide the talent.

For Zawacki, an amateur promoter with a background as a poet and teacher, it would be the first chance to broaden his scope as an evangelist for Cajun culture beyond New England. For Hassett, himself a fan of Cajun music, the festival would be one in a series of folk and ethnic festivals that he wanted to present at the Ford Theatre as an alternative to more typical rock and pop fare.

The result, last Memorial Day weekend, was a happy gathering of performers and fans of Cajun and zydeco. On the second day, a standing-room-only crowd of 1,500 filled the theater. But instead of being solidified by success, the partnership behind the festival fell apart.

The Cajun wars went public a few weeks ago via printed flyers from Zawacki, promoting his upcoming festival. “Roy shrugged off paying several (of last year’s) festival bills and has continued to keep my share of the profits,” Zawacki wrote in a short text titled “Why the ‘Original’ Festival Moved to the Velodrome.”

Zawacki said in an interview that he publicized his problems with Hassett because he wants to make it clear that he no longer has anything to do with the Ford Theatre’s Cajun festival and to alert people who enjoyed last year’s event that his own follow-up bash has moved.

Hassett acknowledges that he has withheld about $5,600 that his ex-partner is due; Zawacki puts the amount at $12,000. Hassett, who denies any other unpaid debts in connection with the event, said he had asked for extra time to pay Zawacki because his theater operation, then in its first season, was short of cash.

When Zawacki complained to county officials, Hassett said, he decided not to pay him. “When we were prepared to pay him in September, he had already started a campaign to blacken our reputation, and I thought some damages were in order,” Hassett said.

John Weber, the Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation Department official who oversees the Ford Theatre, said he has heard both sides of the matter. “I’m not in a position to say one is right and one is wrong. It’s not a problem that concerns the county. It’s a contract dispute,” Weber said.

The upshot of the financial disagreement and various other back-and-forth allegations of greed and bad behavior is that area music fans have a choice between two festivals this weekend, both laying claim to the good will generated a year ago.

The Velodrome festival includes five acts from last year’s lineup at the Ford. “(Hassett) is not trying to get patrons through his lineup,” Zawacki said. “He’s hoping for a return audience of patrons who came to my festival last year. The whole of his show can be seen at a supper club.”

Indeed, after finishing at the Ford at dusk Sunday, the Louisiana Cajun Zydeco Revue is booked to appear at 8 p.m. at the Strand, a supper and dance club in Redondo Beach. Besides Rockin’ Sidney, the Revue includes veteran Louisiana fiddler Allen Fontenot & the Country Cajuns, and Al Rapone & Zydeco Express.

Rapone, based in San Francisco, is the brother of Queen Ida, one of the most popular zydeco performers. He was her musical director before forming his own band. Two of the Velodrome festival’s performers also have other area engagements over the weekend: Beausoleil will play Friday night at Club Lingerie in Hollywood, while Terrance Simien will appear the same night at the Music Machine in West Hollywood.

Zawacki said he needs to draw at least 2,000 fans to the Velodrome each day to make his festival a success. Dan Jacobson, an independent producer hired by Hassett to stage the Hollywood festival, said a draw of 600 each day would make the Ford Theatre show a financial success.

Hassett and Zawacki both say they are confident despite the competition. But Kate Mytron, president of the Bon Ton Social Club, a group of 100 Los Angeles aficionados of Louisiana culture, regards the L.A. Cajun war as a disturbing development.

“There’s a real limited audience, and you need to put all the people together,” said Mytron. “If there’s a split, everybody’s going to lose. It shouldn’t be.” A Zawacki loyalist, she appealed unsuccessfully for the Ford Theatre to postpone its Cajun festival to a different weekend.

Tony Secunda, the San Francisco agent who has booked a national package tour for Rockin’ Sidney and the others in the Louisiana Cajun Zydeco Revue, looks at the competition as a struggle between a professional entertainment operation, the Ford Theatre, and Zawacki, who “doesn’t have the long-term experience of a true heavyweight in the game.” But Zawacki does have experience and strong connections in one specialized field: Cajun music.

“We’ll know at the end of the day” which credential carries more weight, Secunda said, “and whoever wins gets to do it next year.” And if both festivals succeed? “It’s great. It means (Cajun and zydeco are) hotter than anyone thought.”