Like all good titles the title of this new release by Nouveau Electric Records of Goldman Thibodeaux and the Lawtell Playboys' La Danse à St. Ann's is the signpost to the rabbit hole that opens a new and magical world for all those who enter. Everything you hear here is about movement, about community, and family; about migration to worlds you are brought to when you hear things you thought you'd forgotten, when you see people you thought you might never see again, when you are moving on a dance floor you barely feel under your feet.
Goldman as front man for the Lawtell Playboys is deeply connected to his Creole and Cajun roots, deeply immersed in pre-zydeco LaLa music of the small rural communities like Lawtell and Mallet. His musical tutelage includes his familial and artistic connections to his relations like Eraste, BeBe, and Calvin Carrière as well as to influences like Amédé Ardoin, Canray Fontenot, Alphonse "Bois Sec" Ardoin" and Delton Broussard.
Musicologist, cultural historian and film maker, Erik Charpentier, notes the influence of "undisclosed relations between Cajun and the Creole people of small communities such as Lawtell, have blurred the lines between what constitutes a Cajun and a Creole. Therefore, it is the reason why many individuals such as Mr. Goldman carry many of the Cajuns' cultural traits while remaining Creole to the core." (source). While Goldman is truly "Creole to the core" and identifies as such, he is the grandson of rural Lewisburg Cajun farmer and planter, Theodule Thibodeaux, and his neighbor, Marie Ophelia Richard. It is therefore no stretch to hear occasional homage to Cajun musicians like Iry Lejeune, whose mentor was the iconic Amédé Ardoin, whom Lejeune often echoed and even copied in his repertoire. But because Goldman is not a purist who plays only one type of music, we also often hear strains and rhythms of pre-LaLa juré and later Zydeco syncopations in his original compositions as well.
La Danse à St. Ann's is a live recording of a dance at the November 2019 Thibodeaux family reunion. Goldman, whose background includes teaching at folklife festivals locally and beyond, is a performance artist. He is happiest and truest when playing live. While he respects the documentation requisite for any professional performer, his passion is to be with people, to get people up on the dance floor, to make them move inside themselves and to make them move in partnership with not only the dancer they hold on to but also with the culture they hold to in the dance. It is not unusual for a band member lean over and suggest to Goldman that the next song in the set might be a two-step and his response: "No, they need a waltz."
To Goldman Thibodeaux family is everything. His sons Charles and Dana came to him and Theresa from a New York orphanage. The priest at St. Ann's arranged the adoption. Goldman and Theresa went to Goldman's father Anatole, son of Marie Ophelia, on his deathbed to ask for guidance and clarity in the adoption and Anatole told them this was the right thing to do. In later years, Goldman and Theresa became the collaborative parents of single-father Dana's son Brock, who plays frottoir (washboard) and t-fer (triangle) with the Playboys when his career as a young golfer allows. Goldman and Theresa also become the caretakers of Goldman's only living elder sibling, Nelson, who died in early 2020.
Charpentier also points out that Goldman's first "official" gig was at St. Ann's where he was able to perform with "old time friends Calvin Carrier and Ulysse Gobert [...] as a full-time member of the Lawtell Playboys." Goldman is a deeply religious man and a lifetime member of St. Ann's. It is not a stretch to be reminded that St. Ann was the grandmother of Jesus and so playing here at St. Ann's might be seen as a kind of house dance at grandma's house. This cd is the "circle unbroken" for Goldman Thibodeaux and the Lawtell Playboys: family, community, culture, belief, friends, neighbors, hope, and mostly, him and his friends, "doing what we can to hold everything together."
Goldman, aged 87, is a living legend and one of the last musicians performing in the traditional French Creole style. La Danse à St. Ann's was recorded by Mark Bingham (Marianne Faithfull, John Scofield, Dr. John, etc.) at the Thibodeaux Family Reunion, November 2019 in Mallett, Louisiana. Produced by Bingham and the band's fiddle player Louis Michot (co-founder of Lost Bayou Ramblers), the album is snapshot of the band at its most comfortable, in its natural element, surrounded by hundreds of family members in a church hall.
Thibodeaux first began playing with his brother-in-law's band at age 14, and in 1966 he began sitting in with the Lawtell Playboys along with Delton Broussard and Calvin Carriere. The band was originally started in 1946 when brothers Bébé and Eraste Carriere combined their talents to form The Lawtell Playboys. Bébé, known as the "King of the Zydeco Fiddle", made his first fiddle from a cigar box and a broken window screen, and played alongside his brother Eraste, on accordion, for many years. Over time, Eraste passed the accordion position on to Delton Broussard, and Bébé passed the position of fiddle player to Eraste's son, Calvin Carriere. Goldman learned to play accordion in his 50's, following a heart attack. Calvin (Goldman's cousin) and Delton played with him often to help him learn. When Delton became ill, he passed the accordion position to Goldman. Calvin and Goldman played for several years before recording their first cd in 2001 titled 'Les Miseres dans le Coeur'. Just before Calvin died, he asked Goldman to take over the band and continue using the name "Lawtell Playboys".
One of the last living musicians to practice traditional Creole music -- often referred to as "LaLa music" -- much of Goldman's inspiration comes from seeing Amédé Ardoin play at a house dance in the Lawtell area. Perched up in a tree as the now-legendary Grandfather of Zydeco arrived on horseback from another dance 20 miles away, Goldman was thrilled when Ardoin offered to let the young boy carry his accordion to the house for him. Goldman watched every second of Amédé's performance intently, an experience that inspires him to this day. Thibodeaux is likely the last living person to have seen the great Amédé Ardoin play a house dance.
As a champion of Creole culture, Goldman has been inducted by the Acadian Museum into the Order of Living Legends and received a Folklife Heritage Award from Louisiana Lt. Governor Jay Dardenne. In 2015, he was featured at the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities Bright Lights Literacy Awards. He has performed at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival for the last 20 years straight, and was asked to return in 2020; his plan was to release La Danse à St. Ann's in conjunction with that appearance. When the festival was canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Thibodeaux chose to release the album anyway to offer his fans and music lovers internationally something to keep their spirits up in these trying times.
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