Searching for You: Beausoleil and "Tous Les Deux Pour La Meme"

Today's song is by Louisiana Creole band Beausoleil. Beausoleil was founded in 1975, released its first album in 1977 and became one of the most well-known groups from playing traditional and original music in the Creole tradition of Louisiana. They have also gone beyond the traditional, incorporating rock and roll, jazz, blues, calypso and other genres. They are an extensive touring band, and they sing in both English and Colonial Louisiana French. The band takes its name from Joseph Broussard dit Beausoleil, who led the Acadian resistance to British deportation from Canada and led 193 exiles to safety in Louisiana. The band almost didn't come to be - Michael Doucet, one of the founders, was going to New Mexico to study Romantic Poets, but he won a Folk Arts Apprenticeship sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts. As he puts it: "I traded William Blake for Dewey Balfa," and he sought out every living Cajun/Creole performer to learn what he could about their music and their techniques. He even encouraged some to resume performing. Beausoleil are one of the few Creole/Cajun groups to win a Grammy. This song, Tous Les Deux Pour La Meme, is from their 1995 album Vintage Beausoleil, and can also be found on their 1997 CD The Best of Beausoleil.