“This is for all the lovers in the room,” Orb Mellon said warmly into the microphone, his voice coasting over the hum and buzz of a slowly filling bar. To his left, a half-finished glass of beer had begun to sweat. Pale, quivering droplets collected at its edges as Mellon picked up his guitar, still on his knees, for another number. Completely in his element, he began:
Oh young lovers you’re lookin’ for trouble, you’re gonna find some
Oh young lovers you’re lookin’ for trouble, you’re gonna find some
In front of the stage, a graduate student and older gentleman brought together by the music had begun a loping two-step. Friends of the two, separated by tables and about 60 years, cheered and clapped enthusiastically. Mellon played on, his head bobbing atop his shoulders, cheeks growing redder as drops of sweat formed on his forehead. What he had to say was clear: For at least one night, the blues and the bayou were back on Crown Street.
That was the message Mellon and the Lost Bayou Ramblers came to deliver Thursday night at Cafe Nine, where they took the stage for around three hours, bringing a full house to its dancing feet throughout the evening.
Lucy Gellman Photo
Lauded for the extensive scope of their music, The Lost Bayou Ramblers were — and for those at the concert, continue to be — another sort of stratospheric experience altogether. They are the perfect Sazerac, or that howling, wet wind that comes before a summer storm, blowing in with an unexpected, formidable force that will bring you to your knees. Started by brothers Louis and Andre Michot in 1999, the group puts zydeco, blues, Cajun, funk, honky tonk, psychedelia, and fuzz into an aural sort of crawfish boil and ladles it out in steaming, perfectly seasoned portions. Their adaptation of “La Valse de Balfa,” featured on the soundtrack to Beasts of the Southern Wild, feels simultaneously old and deeply contemporary, the lyrics “J´étais parti pour te chercher, cher / Où mourir au bout de mon sang” taking on a whole new urgency as they vibrated through Cafe Nine’s floorboards. A two-step with which they opened had the ghosts of Canray Fontenot, Aldus Roger, and Merle Haggard swinging by the amps. And a recurring wail, to which abandon shrugged its heavy shoulders and walked away, set the overall tone for the evening: unfiltered conversation and community.
What was stunning, above all else, is how completely they are a group. Yes, they are on fire as individual musicians. By the end of the evening, I wanted to spend hours taking apart and reassembling Louis’s voice and Andre’s accordion tactics, Eric Heigle’s drum skills and Ryan Brasseaux’s nuanced and precise triangle, but it’s more than that. Together, they form something that feels not only of one old world and one new, but utterly whole, and without losses.
“They are, I would say, the premiere Cajun band in America today. Period. To me its fascinating to think about a group of young people — they started in their early twenties — playing a kind of music that people hadn’t heard since the twenties or thirties. They now occupy a kind of sonic space that was prevalent in Louisiana in the postwar period … during the fifties, sixties. That’s essentially the new sound,” said Brasseaux, who serves as dean of Davenport College at Yale University and has played with the band on several occasions.
“My mother taught me to appreciate this kind of music, I would go to honky tonks, beer joints … it was the social aspect, about building. There’s something so very cathartic about the way Cajun music sounds,” he added. “That wail … It’s the best of both worlds.”
To check out upcoming events at Cafe Nine, visit the club’s website.