August 26-September 1, 2004

music

Boot Up

A Quebec band returns to the Philadelphia Folk Festival after 15 years with a new version of the old sound.

by Mary Armstrong

"I remember that festival! I slept in a pup tent, me and my acoustic bass!" chortles Régent Archambault — presently the longest tenured member of La Bottine Souriante — summoning up memories of his band's first appearance at the Philly Folk Fest. "Michel Bordeleau took his mandolin and we stayed up all night long at those campfires."

After 17 years with the Joliette, Quebec, band, it's tough for Archambault to pin down the exact year, but it was 1988, back before the band underwent a sea change in 1990, adding trombones, trumpet and sax. Before then, LBS's sound was still close to the working-folks image evoked by their name, which translates to "the smiling boot" — a poetic way to describe a boot curled with age and use.

In '88, the Folk Fest audience roared in approval of LBS's version of the traditional French song "La Ziguezon." A country tune, it's arranged as a call and response, with multiple voices in harmony and feet furiously pounding out the beat in the traditional tapinage. "We still do 'La Ziguezon,'" Archambault assures. "But now it has a little Afro-beat added."

So this isn't quite the same band it was last time it played Folk Fest. Not to worry, says Archambault. "Our material is still the same. The spirit is there. We have a central core that is very traditional, in instrument and arrangement." You'll still hear the fiddle and accordion, the call and the response and the feet keeping the beat. Everybody's grinning and having a ball.

"We don't want to lose that. Traditional music starts in the kitchen. Even though some of the music comes from university archives research." The scholarly collection of songs and sounds has been a passion with the band since the beginning. Their first recording, Y'a Ben du Changement, was a thorough gathering of music from the Lanaudiûre region.

Since then, LBS has continued to honor the tradition, while tarting it up just a tad. Perfect multivoiced harmony would rarely be heard in a kitchen session. They take these old songs and polish them up so that people beyond the farmhouse and sugar camp will learn and love them.

The band was formed in 1976, as the separatist movement was gaining strength in Quebec. When René Lévesque was elected premier of Quebec, Archambault recalls traditional French music was much in evidence on the radio. Once the separatist referendum lost, there was a backlash. People started calling the radio stations demanding disco and rock. Folk artists' careers ground to a halt.

"La Bottine started to travel in the states and a little in Europe. That's how the band survived the '80s," says Archambault. "One year I made only six thousand bucks! But I had no family, so I was happy."

The horn section was an experiment that worked. Archambault figures the band's horn arrangement owes a certain something to the New Orleans brass bands — another musical evolution from a Franco-American base. LBS was also innovative in elevating percussive dancer Sandy Silva to full-time member status. Archambault says her dancing drives the band's energy to greater heights.

The experiments have worked well for LBS. "Now everybody on the street in Quebec knows us!" Not surprising, as they now have numerous gold and platinum awards. OK, Canada has fewer people, so those distinctions mean 50,000 and 100,000 units, respectively. Still not too shabby for a band named after a worn-out boot.