La Famille Leger
L’Etoile Du Nord
La Famille Leger

www.lafamilleleger.com
 

A true family band, La Famille Leger plays Acadian and French-Canadian back porch and kitchen party music from Eastern Canada, much of it which they’ve uncovered themselves – most recently in the New Brunswick area. They currently reside in Seattle, Washington, where this superb sounding album was recorded (at the legendary all-acoustic Empty Sea Studio) mixed and mastered by visionary, big-eared owner Michael Thomas Connolly, who also plays bass on a couple of tracks (the sprightly “Tunes From Lucy Johannes” and the murder ballad “Ma Mie Tant Blanche”). Family patriarch Louis Leger engagingly leads the band on his one-row melodeon (a type of button accordion) with his wife Barbara on guitar while their son Devon plays fiddle, mandolin and “feet” and his wife Dejah adds piano on a few tracks – favorites are the jaunty novelty song “La Chanson Du Crapaud” (a classic tale of thwarted inter-species love) and a lively four tune medley from the songbook of New Brunswick’s Eloi LeBlanc, known as “The Fiddler of Memramcook Valley.” Further favorites are a tasty blend of three reels by Andre A Toto Savoie, a mournful version of George LeBlanc’s “Reel Du P’tit Cap” (with a haunting vocal by Dejah), the Zen-like “Par Une Dimanche Au Soir” (learned from an archival recording by Xavier Le Blanc) and the title tune – a universal story of man separated from his wife by a sea voyage, from the singing of Lucy Jane Doucet from Belle Cote in Cape Breton. As their web-site puts it: “This proudly “old school” family band will have your own family dancing and joining in the fun.” I know it had mine out of our seats.

— Gary Von Tersch