POP MUSIC REVIEW : ‘Original’ Fest Celebrates Cajun Roots

You know that theory about how laughter can help cure your ills?

Cajun music may also be a reliable prescription--a fact that has been celebrated for generations in the bayous of Southern Louisiana, where Cajun was born, but a tonic that only recently has begun to be recognized outside the land of Tabasco.

Regarding Cajun’s therapeutic value, consider the scene in front of the stage at the second annual “Original” Cajun and Zydeco Festival on Saturday afternoon at the Olympic Velodrome in Carson.

An elderly man, who had been supporting himself with a metal walker-cane, got so caught up in some dance steps that he kept moving even after laying the cane aside. Bon Ton Roulet, indeed.

The news about Cajun and its blues-infused offspring, zydeco, has spread considerably in recent years--thanks to such varied good fortunes as an influential 1985 recording by Rockin’ Sidney titled “My Toot Toot” and by the extensive use of the Louisiana music in the 1987 film, “The Big Easy.”

Paul Simon’s work with South African musicians on the “Graceland” album and in the engaging Norten o s influences in Los Lobos’ music has also made pop audiences more open to sounds outside the pop-rock mainstream.

Michael Doucet & Beausoleil and Terrance Simien & the Mallet Playboys--two of the featured acts on the seven-hour bill during Saturday’s opening portion of the two-day festival--were both showcased on the “Big Easy” sound-track album and the differences in their music underscore the range of Cajun and zydeco music.

Doucet, a fiddler and singer in his late 30s, is a traditionalist who is open to change. There’s such an appealing hoedown spirit to his brand of Cajun that even Beausoleil’s ballads have a seductive dance sway. The band--whose name means beautiful sunshine-- used guitar, bass and keyboards on Saturday, but its peppy, invigorating rhythm is built around an emphasis on fiddle, accordion and drums.

The tonic is so disarming that it’s no wonder such pop heroes as Bruce Springsteen and U2 caught Doucet’s band Friday night at Club Lingerie in Hollywood, a warm-up for the festival. On Saturday, songwriter-guitarist Richard Thompson joined Beausoleil for “Louie, Louie,” a witty surprise selection.

If Beausoleil was the most imaginative band musically at the show, which drew an estimated 2,000 fans, Simian, a singer and accordionist in his early 20s, was the afternoon’s most dynamic performer. Widely hailed as a leader in a new breed of zydeco musicians, he mixes such firm (and sometimes overly familiar) rock and R & B textures in his arrangements that the energetic strumming of a metal “rub-board” player is little more than visual because the sound of the board itself is buried.

It was not an altogether convincing performance, but there is an edge of electricity about Simian that suggests he’s someone whose career is worth watching. The same can be said about Wayne Toups and the ZydeCajuns if the group tones down some of its overly pop-conscious aspects.

The festival was also noteworthy as a rare display of racial integration in pop. John Delafose, whose Eunice Playboys band offered a shaky, but flavorful cover of the Blasters’ “Marie, Marie,” and Simian are black, while Doucet and Toups are white.

Throughout the afternoon, there was the sense of celebration of a shared culture, a people in South Louisiana who for years were a much-abused underclass. However different their styles, the musicians exhibited a pride in their music and culture, playing with an affection and joy that was a simple, but liberating display of grass-roots idealism.