The Savoy Family Cajun Band
Carrying on Traditional Cajun Music

The Savoy Family Cajun Band plays honed down, hard core Cajun music laced with an earthy sensuality. Though the old tunes have been revived and returned to a new life intensity in their hands, the Savoy Family Cajun band doesn’t play from a studied angle. The musicians in the band, Marc and Ann Savoy and their sons Joel and Wilson, each hold their own as strong individual group members, making up a tight intense sound.

Marc and Ann ,as the Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band, have been performing and recording together since 1977, recording five Cds on the Arhoolie label. They have traveled all over the world, appearing in all the most prestigious venues, such as the Newport Folk Festival, the Berlin Jazz Festival, the Festival of American Fiddle Tunes at the Smithsonian Institution, the National Geographic Concert Series, even the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London, England, to name a few. The nation has rewarded them for their authenticity and expertise by taking them on numerous state department tours, featuring them in national festivals, awarding Marc Savoy the highest honor in the country for traditional artists, the honorable National Heritage Fellowship Award. The couple recently appeared on the PBS series “American Roots”, and Ann wrote the chapter on Cajun music in the book that accompanied the series which was published by Rolling Stone Press. Ann and son Joel recently appeared in the film “Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood” and they perform three songs on the Warner Brothers soundtrack. Ann was awarded the Botkin Book Award for her definitive book on the history of Cajun music.

Although the Savoy Family Cajun Band insists upon maintaining a more accoustic approach to Cajun music the band can hold hold its own amongst Cajun music lovers everywhere. In fact, the band loves seeing how much power and sound they can get out of just four instruments. Each member of the band can play numerous instruments and sometimes trade instruments during stage performances. Sometimes the group demonstrates the way Cajun music has evolved by demonstrating the early double fiddle - triangle sound or the solo accordion - fiddle sound. Early French ballads are added to the program to show other historic elements prevelant in early southwest Louisiana. Between the songs the Cajun French poetry of the songs is often briefly translated by Ann so that the feeling can be better understood.Their repertoire is chosen carefully, popular dancehall tunes interspersed with soulful ballads, fiddle or vocal duets, or blues. The songs show the spectrum of Cajun life from sorrow and lost love to nonsense and the joy of dance.

The Savoy Family Cajun Band brings the raw energy of the dancehalls of southwest Louisiana to the stage, peppered with humourous and informative anecdotes about life on the Louisiana prairies. Their first CD has been recently released on Arhoolie Records this year.

Marc Savoy-was born and raised in the small Cajun prairie town of Eunice, Louisiana. Drawing inspiration from'bals de maison' (house dances) in his father's outdoor kitchen, Savoy obtained his first accordion and began playing it at the age of 12. Playing the instrument led to repairing it and after disassembling enough accordions he began to build them. Playing the accordion has always been a natural part of his life from the dancehall to the home. Some of the first bands he played with were Austin Pitre and Will and Rodney Balfa. Later he played the Texas Cajun -Triangle dancehalls and recorded some 45 rpms on the Crazy Cajun label. He traveled and recorded with Dewey Balfa, DL Menard, Doc Guidry and Dennis McGee and Sady Courville. In 1965 Marc opened the Savoy Music Center in Eunice which has become a gathering place for local musicians and interested travelers from all over the world. At the store he builds six accordions a month, sending them out to all corners of the globe. Saturday mornings Savoy hosts a jam session at his store.

A striking feature of Marc’s presence is his down-hominess and devotion to preserving Cajun culture. Whether he is playing at his weekly jam session, on a porch, at a dance or festival, it is all the same. He presents his music in it’s natural state, no glitz, no Cool Whip, no glamour.

Today Savoy travels and plays music with his wife Ann and Michael Doucet or the Savoy Family Band which features his wife Ann and their two sons, Joel and Wilson. He has recorded seven CDs on the Arhoolie label and has traveled throughout the US ,Europe, and Canada. Some of the festivals the band has performed for include three presidential inaugurations, the John F. Kennedy Center , the Queen Elizabeth Hall in London,the Newport Folk Festival, the Berlin Jazz Festival, the Jambalaya Jam in Philadelphia, Cajun Bluegrass Festival in California and Rhode Island, Festival of American Music in Oregon, Kaustinen Folk Festival of Finland, Le Carrefour des Accordions in Trois Rivieres, Canada, and many more. Savoy loves being in Louisiana where he is known for being an outspoken cultural preservationist, fighting to keep the music pure and unadulterated .In 1982 he was awarded the prestigious National Heritage Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. Marc recently appeared in the PBS documentary, American Roots Series.

Ann Savoy is a musician, an author, a record producer, and a photographer. As a musician she appears with her son Joel in the film Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood and performs three of the twelve cuts on the accompanying soundtrack on Sony Music, has played guitar, fiddle, and accordion and traveled throughout the world with her husband accordionist Marc Savoy and fiddler Michael Doucet in the Savoy Doucet Cajun Band. She also records and travels with her all-woman band The Magnolia Sisters. Recently she and husband Marc have begun to perform with their talented sons in the Savoy Family Band.

She has recorded six CDs on the Arhoolie and Rounder labels. Ann has appeared in many documentaries on the subject of Cajun music, most recently PBS series American Roots Music, and with her husband was the subject of Les Blank’s film, Marc and Ann. She also works as an record producer for Vanguard Records, for whom she produced the Grammy nominated tribute to Cajun music, Evangeline Made, featuring, among others, pop and folk idols Linda Ronstadt, John Fogerty, Richard and Linda Thompson, Nick Lowe, and Rodney Crowell performing traditional Cajun tunes. Her new project for Vanguard, a tribute to Creole and Zydeco, entitled Creole Bred , will be out in May, 2004. In 2003 he produced a CD for the state of Louidiana showcasing all the musical styles found within the Atchafalaya Heritage region. This CD can be obtained by sending a donation to Adriane Kramer, Atchafalaya Trace Commission, Dept of Culture, Recreation and Tourism in Baton Rouge. As a writer , she is the author of the Botkin award winning book, Cajun Music, A Reflection of a People, a book which chronicles the history of Cajun and Zydeco music through interviews, biographies, historic and current photographs, and song transcriptions. She wrote the chapter on Cajun and Zydeco in the recently released book, American Roots Music, Rolling Stone Press, as well as authoring numerous articles on Cajun music and historic CD booklets.

Joel Savoy, son of Cajun musicians Marc and Ann Savoy, has been raised among all of the greats in Cajun music. As a baby Joel sat in Dewey Balfa’s lap as he played the fiddle, he played with the legendary fiddlers Dennis McGee and Wade Fruge. Frequent visitors to his home were all of the finest musicians of most folk cultures. As a young boy he played fiddle in his own Cajun band, Jeunes Gens de la Prairie and today heads his Cajun/gypsy group The Red Stick Ramblers. The Red Stick Ramblers have recently released their loudly praised first CD. For many years he has played fiddle and bass throughout the world with his parents and Michael Doucet in the Savoy Doucet Cajun Band and, appears on their latest CD, “Sam’s Big Rooster”. He sidelines as a recording engineer, having set up a recording studio in his grandfather’s outdoor kitchen, He is seen as an upcoming star in the field of Cajun music, his fiddle style reflecting the great artist friends with whom he has been raised, from the above legends to recent greats Michael Doucet and Ken Smith. Recently Joel appeared, with Ann, in the movie and on the soundtrack “Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood”. Joel graduated from LSU Dec 2002.

Wilson Savoy, has known Cajun music since he was a child growing up on a farm near Eunice, Louisiana. At the age of 15, Wilson’s father, Marc, gave him an accordion that he built from the wood of a Sassafras tree that was planted the same day Marc's father was born, and died the same year as he. At the age of 18, Wilson began touring the world with his parents, Ann and Marc Savoy, and his brother, Joel Savoy, in the Savoy Family Band. Wilson attended LSU and studied Communications, and upon completing his minor in German, Wilson moved to Lafayette to be closer to the music that he so loved.

By age 21, Wilson was touring around the United States and France teaching accordion at music camps such as Augusta, Fiddle Tunes, and Tikendalc'h in Bretagne, France. Wilson's accordion style is influenced heavily by blues and improvisation, as his role models are Amédé Ardoin, Iry LeJeune, Lawrence Walker, and his father, Marc Savoy, but enjoys and continues to be influenced by old and modern Cajun, Soul, and Blues ranging from traditional and modern Cajun and Zydeco to Ray Charles and Jerry Lee Lewis piano styles.Wilson heads his own young Cajun band, the Pine Leaf Boys, playing both accordion and fiddle. He records on the Lion's Gate label. Wilson has received an honorary state grant to study fiddle with the brilliant fiddle legend, Ken Smith. Wilson plays twin fiddle inspired by Ken Smith, Mike Doucet, Lionel Leloux, and David Greely.