Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Fiddler David Greely departs the Mamou Playboys for the quiet of acoustic music. By Hope Rurik
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| Photo by Hope Rurik |
On March 8, surrounded by Eunice’s drenched Mardi Gras revelers, David Greely said a tender and tearful goodbye to Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys — the band he and Riley founded more than 20 years ago.
“I always wanted to play Cajun music,” Greely said from the bandstand. “Not only did I get to play Cajun music, but I got to play with the greatest band.”
“He made the greatest Cajun band,” guitarist Sam Broussard countered.
The divorce is a necessary evil in order for Greely to maintain his hearing. Two years ago, the fiddler learned he was losing his ability to hear high frequency sounds. He suffers from a condition called tinnitus, meaning he hears a constant ringing that drowns out subtle tones and cues.
“You know what cicadas sound like in the summer?” Greely asks. “That’s what it’s like all the time.”
He says the sound is still low enough to ignore, but playing in clubs aggravates the problem, and it sometimes takes three days for the ringing to subside to a normal level. He can no longer play at the sound level clubs and dance halls require, and his retirement from the Playboys is actually a retreat into acoustic music.
“There are a lot of situations where it’s actually kind of unusual to set up bass and drums and be as loud as a Cajun bandstand is,” he says. “I love exploring Cajun music that’s more designed for house music. There’s a whole huge area of Cajun music that is designed for that and is really beautiful. It has its own kind of energy for sure; it’s not all mellow, but it’s joyous, gorgeous music played on acoustic instruments.”
Where many successful Cajun musicians are born into the culture and the art form, Greely studied it from a distance. The Baton Rouge native had the fascination and lineage, but no immediate connection. While living in San Antonio, he “bluffed” his way into a gig at Boudreaux’s restaurant.
“I thought, ‘Cool. I’ve got a gig playing Cajun music. Now, I’m gonna learn to play it,’” Greely recalls.
His stint at the restaurant was the catalyst for an increasing passion for Cajun music and culture that Greely continues to feed through constant research and at least two hours of daily practice. Although this new chapter means he will have the opportunity to explore new elements of his craft, Greely says he’ll miss his old audience.
“A Cajun dance hall audience is the most entertaining thing to people on the bandstand. Like when we play at Pat’s in Henderson, there’s not too many hipsters out there. It’s all down-home folk and, man, they have a blast, and they’re just such characters,” he says. “Just about every time I play, I get overcome with laughter, and I can’t play on one song or another.”
Greely may have started out faking it, but he made it and is still making it and says he hopes to keep making it for as long as he can.
GumboJet, GreelySavoyduo, and Marce LaCouture and David Greely are his current acoustic projects and the names to look for when longing for the Balfa-inspired whine of Greely’s fiddle.
“I’m having more fun playing music now than I ever have. I work on it constantly. I’m still involved with it — obsessed with Cajun music. I love it more than ever,” he says. “I’ve got 20, 30 years to go, if I’m lucky, and I want to be able to play music all that time, but if I keep punishing my hearing, I’ll have to quit.”
JUNE 19 Former Saint Steve Gleason, who is paralyzed by ALS, released a statement Tuesday in response to the Atlanta radio station's skit making fun of him and the disease, this Picayune post reports. What did he say? He said he'd accepted the apology of the DJs who did it, notes that at least the incident has got people talking about ALS, and asks anyone who is burning to take action about it to do so -- by helping him fight ALS.
JUNE 19 Blogger Ian McGibboney takes a look at the Gleason incident in this post. He makes a good argument about the difference between having free speech and being free from consequences for your speech (which none of us is). He also admits that many of us got upset before we listened to the skit -- but lets us know that the reality is far worse than we can imagine. It was the incredibly bad judgment, even more than the actual speech, that probably got those DJs fired, he opines.
JUNE 19 Washington Post blogger Aaron Blake writes about Sen. Guillory's switch to the GOP in this post. He writes what most political watchers in Louisiana know: Guillory was a Republican before he decided to run for the senate seat in a mostly-D St. Landry district, and has switched back now that he plans to run for Lt. Gov. in a mostly-R state. But how come Blake missed Guillory's appearance on a TLC pageant show? Now that is a video we'd like to see. (Again).
JUNE 19 Here's another Washington Post blog post about a Louisiana politician, and it's just plain scathing. Ezra Klein says Jindal's Politico post was "insulting" to the intelligence of voters, and adds that Jindal is personifying the "stupid" he's railed against, by being an "elite" who convinces GOP activists of "things that aren't true." Me-ow.
JUNE 19 Here's Gov. Jindal's post in Politico, in which he asks the GOP to get over losing to Obama (again) and stop "the bedwetting." (Uh, what?) He gives his Republican buddies what is probably a nerd's idea of a coach's motivational talk, which starts with a list of accomplishments that they can't seem to exploit and ending with an absurd description of liberals that sounds like a character treatment for a Fox "News" movie scripted by Gordon Liddy. Sure, he's preaching to the choir, but even the choir's not this gullible.
JUNE 19 Lamar Parmentel read Gov. Jindal's post on Politico, but thinks it was so dumb it probably was published in the wrong paper. This post by Lamar on the Daily Kingfish opines that possibly Jindal's post was destined for the Onion -- because the governor couldn't possibly be serious here. If you listen closely, you can hear the staff of the Kingfish giggling.
JUNE 19 Blogger Robert Mann posts from Turkey, a country he has visited several times in the past few years. Mann gives an interesting overview of the current political and societal climate of the country, which -- if you're living under a rock and don't know -- is experiencing protests and turmoil these days. Mann promises to post as much as he can during his trip, which should be fascinating reading.
JUNE 19 Blogger CB Forgotston says the legislature is keeping the vicious cycle going with its funding of new buildings for the community college/technical college system. Universities across the state need maintenance and improvement on existing buildings, and the solution is to build new buildings at other schools? By the time the bonds are paid off, those buildings will be falling down, too, CB says.
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