Review of the Pine Leaf Boys performance at the Jazz Fest 2007 by David Fricke

"The Pine Leaf Boys are a biracial Cajun band — no common thing — steeped in tradition (singer-accordionist Wilson Savoy is the son of Cajun performer-scholars Marc and Ann Savoy) but with free-range ambitions in soul, Canned Heat-style boogie, zydeco (the country funk of black Louisiana) and Mardi Gras Indian chants. They did it all — sometimes all at once — in their Jazz Fest set with the tight, headlong delight that makes Blues de Musicien (Arhoolie), their second album, the next best thing to a Saturday night dance in Lafayette."

The Pine Leaf Boys have been featured in the New York Times, a two-page, full color spread by Geoffrey Himes.

This [show at Pat's Atchafalaya Club] was the Pine Leaf Boys’ seventh show in five days, and if you had spent the Mardi Gras weekend in Lafayette, the biggest city in the Cajun region known as Acadiana, you could have also seen the Lost Bayou Ramblers at the Blue Moon Saloon on Saturday night and the Red Stick Ramblers at 307 Downtown on Sunday night. At each spot you would have found young dancers responding with the same enthusiasm.

The fiddler Cedric Watson, dressed in a blue Cajun Mardi Gras costume with yellow and green fringe, closed out the show with a new arrangement of “Zydeco Gris Gris.” Mr. Watson sawed out the infectious tune and led the cries of “Zydeco!” The musicians’ fellow 20-somethings in the crowd hollered right back.

Click here to view the whole article as a PDF.

May/June 2007
Cajun Cool

"THE STAGE is covered in people: It's the end of a set and the band has hurriedly pulled folks out of the front rows. You can't see the drummer, girls have surrounded the guitar player, and one guy is shouting in the singer's mike...

"Everything about the Pine Leaf Boys on its surface goes against the traditional notions of Cajun music, which on record and in performance often sounds like the forlorn music of days gone by... but it all comes from an exploration of the roots of their music, "We're trying to go back as far as we can for inspiration, " Watson says.

- Alex Rawls

• The Pine Leaf Boys won BEST CAJUN OF 2006 and BEST CAJUN OF 2007 in the BIG EASY AWARDS

• Blues de Musicien is #1 for 10 weeks running, the top hit of Roots Music Report, with "La Musique" (The PLBs 1st CD) still on #6 (for 56-weeks running)

The Pine Leaf Boys featured on Nick Spitzer's American Routes which aired in early March.

The audio segment can be downloaded by clicking here.

Pine Leaf Boys, cover of Offbeat Magazine, September 2006

The Pine Leaf Boys have shared the stage with the Little Band of Gold at Tipitina's on April 21st 2007, with special guest Robert Plant (lead singer from Led Zeppelin)

The Pine Leaf Boys on the front cover of the TIMES of Acadiana. Click to read the article.

Pine Leaf Boys were the first ever Cajun / Creole / Zydeco band to play at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, and they were received with wide open arms and an audience of over 100,000.

Some people worry about bird flu and if enough vaccine will be around when the epidemic hits. The Weather Channel is concerned that more killer hurricanes will strike in its always-on show of impending doom.

But the Pine Leaf Boys of Lafayette, Louisiana, have more serious concerns. The Boys want to rid the world of what they call "faux Cajun bands" ... characters whose music is more Lawrence Welk than Lawrence Walker. Their exaggerated accents and mispronunciations would make made-for-TV Cajun Justin Wilson blush.

Read more from Singout! Magazine

November 2007 -

Pine Leaf Boys share the stage with Taj Mahal