Grand Tasso

It's rare, but it does happen on occasion that a song affects me deeply. Last night I was listening to the Red Stick Ramblers, one of those young and upcoming bands that is preserving Cajun music, and I was dumbstruck by the song Grand Tasso. You can listen to it for free here, it's under their 2002 album "The Red Stick Ramblers." I can't stop listening to it.

Apparently it's a traditional song with additional lyrics by two of the band members, and I'm frantic that I can't find the lyrics to the song anywhere since I'd love to learn it. My French isn't good enough to decipher it, and although I can make out some of the lyrics (mixed with some English), I imagine the dialectical differences would defeat me.

In Cajun country, there is a food called tasso--a highly spiced and dried pork sausage that is an essential ingredient in gumbo and other gastronomical delights. There is a community called Tasso, by Bayou Mallet, near Eunice, deep in an area of road houses where Cajuns come to dance at the fais do do's each Saturday. The place figures in many a traditional song.

Well, there you go! The Red Stick Ramblers not only play traditional Cajun music, but they incorporate Western swing and jazz influences from folks like Bob Wills and Django Reinhardt, and they cover some of their songs as well.

Great stuff. I know Michael Doucet also recorded Grand Tasso, but the droning fiddle of the Red Stick Rambler's version gives it a touch of melancholy that fits so perfectly and the vocalist has that touch of world-weariness that carries it home. Anyone who covers That's What I Like About The South has got my admiration.