Bonsoir, Catin: Cajun Girl Power

DAVID SIMPSON

Bonsoir, Catin

Cajun Girl Power!

An abridged version of the Bonsoir, Catin story in Update! #68

BONSOIR, CATIN began in 2004 when three ladies, Kristi Guillory, Christine Balfa and Yvette Landry, started jamming around a campfire during Louisiana Folk Root’s Balfa Week. Kristi and Yvette met one evening at the Blue Moon Saloon. They started talking and Yvette mentioned to Kristi that she played bass. Kristi, who was on a hiatus from music, had been looking to start a band and the wheels began turning. Later that year, Kristi met up with Yvette at Louisiana Folk Root’s Balfa Week where Kristi was volunteering as a folklorist interviewing the master artists, and Yvette was a student. “After spending a week together and hanging out, Yvette and I were jamming around a camp fire with Christine Balfa, who I’ve known since I was ten years old and first starting out on accordion,” says Guillory.

“We all instantly recognized how easy it was to play with each other, so I asked them if they wanted to start a band and luckily they both said yes.” They started throwing around ideas of what the band could be and sound like. Balfa Week ended and they all went back to their day-to-day lives.

Founding band members Kristi Guillory, Christine Balfa, and Yvette Landry with Danny Devillier on drums in 2012.

“We were talking about how much fun it would be to get together and have some girlfriends and play some music,” Guillory said. “Actually, play it in a style that rocks out.” By ‘rocks out,’ Guillory meant honky-tonk. “It’ll be a little bit more honkytonk. It’ll be Cajun music, but sort of with that driving beat that Christine and I like to play,” she said. “A real strong dance beat.”

But a primary source of their inspiration to form the allwoman band lies in an experience Balfa had at a store. Somebody

The band personnel of Bonsoir, Catin performing at Festival International in 2015: Anya Burgess, Maegan Berard, Callie Guidry, Laura Huval, Kristi Guillory, Christine Balfa, and Ashley Hayes Steele, with Danny Devillier in back on drums.

introduced Christine as Dewey Balfa’s daughter, and someone said, “Since he didn’t have a son, Christine had to take up the music.” That coupled with another time when Balfa was pregnant, and Balfa Toujours was playing at Whiskey River. Somebody asked if she was having a boy or a girl. Balfa told the inquiring man it would be a girl. “And the guy said something like, ‘Maybe the next one will be a musician,’” as Guillory related it.

“Christine and I were talking about how much fun it would be,”

Guillory recalls, “to play music again, but this time get together as girlfriends and play some music that really rocks out, that’s a little more honky-tonk. Since we both have daughters, we also wanted to put together an all-female Cajun band that really rocks to prove to our daughters by example that the old Cajun prejudice toward women playing on stage is definitely a thing of the past.”

“About a week or so after Balfa Camp, I called up Christine to see if she was serious about starting a band,” Kristi continued. Christine was not only game, but she had fiddle player Anya Burgess in mind to round out the band. One thing led to another, and before they even had a repertoire Yvette was asked to put a band together as part of the grand opening ceremonies for the Butte La Rose Visitor’s Center. Not long after that Kristi called up the Blue Moon Saloon and booked the band’s first full length gig. “We started rehearsing and brought some different tunes to play and before long we were playing like we’ve been together for years,” Kristi says. The rapport was instant and the rest, as they say, was history.

The name “Bonsoir, Catin” comes from an old Amédé Ardoin song called “Amédé Two-Step,” where the phrase appears in the first line.

The word catin is an old term of endearment that meant something along the lines of baby doll before French was nationally standardized. Since the standardization, the term has taken on a negative connotation. “We never had any hesitation in using the name. We really liked how it sounded in the context of Amede’s song,” Kristi says. As a result they are forging their own meaning of the word with women referring to themselves as a catin, meaning an “evocative, creative, strong female who is smart, thoughtful and sexy with a little bit of sass and edge.”

Reviewing the album L’Aurore, Ben Sandmel wrote, “One especially innovative new Cajun-music project is the eclectic yet cohesive L’Aurore by the respected veteran musicians who comprise the band Bonsoir, Catin. Among this album’s many unexpected delights is a brief, beautiful interlude of original classical music — replete with

a string section and a French horn — that connects the songs “L’aurore” and “Si loin.” Bonsoir, Catin’s live performance of the entire album was a high point of last year’s Festivals Acadiens et Créoles in Lafayette.”

According to OffBeat Magazine’s reviewer Nick Pittman, the

“The pair strings question of what does it mean together a narrative of to be a modern Cajun band is losing love and finding it answered on Bonsoir, Catin’s where they shouldn’t. L’Aurore. He says, “Without daring They keep to Cajun song to confine themselves, the band structure, but with a members Christine Balfa, Anya more poetic modern Burgess, Maegan Berard, Kristi edge.” Guillory and Danny Devillier build layers of rhythm around the poetry of Guillory and new member Ashley Hayes (veteran of Feufollet and Kevin Naquin & the Ossun Playboys). The pair strings together a narrative of losing love and finding it where they shouldn’t. They keep to Cajun song structure, but with a more poetic modern edge. The record starts by swirling together

dreamy alt-country and pop with a beauty worthy of Neko Case’s “Deep Red Bells.” ‘L’aurore’ and ‘Si Loin’ form a two-song suite of what might be the first classical arrangements in the genre…. Guest vocals by Roddie Romero, and keys by Eric Adcock — bring piano to the forefront, which adds to its L’aurore (2017) intimate quality.”

Pittman says, “Bonsoir, Catin unleashes a raucous and earthy foot stomper that is sure to be a live favorite [with ‘The Squirrel Song’]. Closer to home, they cover ‘All Night Long’ by Clifton Chenier and the traditional ‘Cher Minoux,’ and touch on BeauSoleil’s style with ‘J’ai vu Lucille.’”

L’Aurore’s tracks are all fresh and well-built no matter the style the band was exploring at the moment. Here, Bonsoir, Catin is not redefining themselves but evolving without ever asking, “Are you sure Aldus Roger done it this way?” 