The Press Says About The Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band....

On “The Divine Secrets Of The Ya Ya Sisterhood” Soundtrack:

“Louisiana is the source of some of the albums most indelible moments..new contributions by Ann Savoy, a singer, guitarist, and folklorist..Savoy has a plaintive,unvarnished delivery that conjures images of clothing hung to dry in a backwoods backyard.Her three Burnett produced tracks are charmers, especially a French version of “It’s A sin to Tell A Lie”, done up here as a waltz. She’s the Ralph Stanley of the project, the last of a dying breed of performers.” - - Entertainment Weekly

“Ya-Ya’s real star is Cajun singer Ann Savoy...(She) does her best to give the rangy set a sense of place..Her three Cajun songs are sweet and sad in all the right places..she is a worthy regional artist who stands to reach a wider audience through the power of the multiplex.” - - Seattle Times

On other CDs and performances:

Savoy Doucet is one of the best Cajun outfits in south Louisiana.Their repertoire represents the best in traditional and original Cajun music..trop chaud.. - - Billboard Magazine 2000

(About “Sam’s Big Rooster”)Ann Savoy uses earthy phrasing to capture the melancholy of backcountry life...the rollicking live tunes as well as lighthearted songs round out this energetic collection. - - New Yorker 2000

Marc, a master of the button accordion, astutely mixed emphatic chords with rippling arpeggios, and Ann, the rhythm guitar player, used her gorgeous voice to add a rare lyricism to what is primarily a social dance music. - -Washington Post

Their acoustic trio has a diverse, fresh, and lively sound, with spirited solos and intuitive interplay.
- - Atlantic Monthly

Marc does things to the accordion that you’ll hardly believe, and Michael’s fiddle swoops and whirls around him. Ann keeps everything in perfect rhythm with her choppy guitar playing, and they tell stories and songs of the bayou in smokey, downhome style. - - LA Weekly

The Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band, arguably louisiana’s finest, are cooking up a storm. marc’s accordion drones and chuckles like a chicken in the hands of a friendly farmer, Michael Doucet’s sawing fiddle soars through an ecstatic perptuum mobile, and Ann Savoy, accompanying herself with a steady chug-chug-chug on an acoustic guitar, sings plangently in french of blighted crops and faithless lovers and other jolly themes.... - - The London Times

Marc Savoy and Michael Doucet are the two primary keepers of the flame on the Cajun music scene..”I recorded three Cds with Marc and Ann. We’re sticklers for playing traditional things. We’ll play ten or twelve bars just like somebody used to, but after that it’s up to us. You put your own feelings into it. If you play exactly like somebody did years ago, you’re not playing yourself. That’s not an evolution of the music, that’s a decadence of the music, and I think Marc agrees with me.(Michael Doucet). - - Audio

Savoy Doucet play together with empathy and unbridled enthusiasm infused with their love for music. Doucet’s fiddling is fiery without being flashy, and Ann Savoy a sure fingered rhythm guitarist. Marc Savoy quite literally knows accordions inside out; when he isn’t playing them he builds them.
- - Chicago Reader

Catching this expert, unpretentious trio is about the closest most of us will ever get to hearing an authentic Cajun bash on a screened-in bayou porch. The Savoy Doucet Cajun Band scrapes, strums, and wails its way through genre chestnuts and in-the-traditional originals with an uncommonly warm, congenial virtuousity. - - Chicago Tribune

Savoy Doucet Cajun Band moves back several decades to the sources of today’s styles. Many of the songs might have disappeared completely if they had not been revived by these dedicated musicians. Their acoustic trio has a diverse, fresh, and lively sound, with spirited solos and intuitive interplay. - - Atlantic Monthly

One of the more fortuitous collaborations has been the Cajun amalgamation of Marc and Ann Savoy and Michael Doucet...mostly it is the trio with tender and moving vocals and occasinal pyrotechnic instrumental breaks..Hearing this makes me feel like they are letting me into a family music gathering, warm and cozy. Very pleasant indeed.. - - Victory review

Accordionist Marc Savoy can be heard egging fiddler and singer Michael Doucet to new instrumental heights. Guitarist Ann Savoy provides unadorned beauty in her straightforward lead vocals.

Marc Savoy’s invigorating accordion work,Doucet’s fiery fiddling, and Ann’s solid rhythm guitar work defy listeners to remain chair bound. - - Los Angeles Times

Music of tremendous verve, soul, and great fun..(Michael )Doucet joined by two great peers, Marc Savoy on accordion and singer-guitarist wife Ann. It’s a real Cajun summit meeting..
- - Adam Magazine

The Savoy Doucet Cajun Band is a remarkable institution. Without peer as a modern band playing Cajun music in the traditional style, they have in Marc Savoy and Michael Doucet the greatest accordionist and fiddle plasyer of their generation. As a unit, the three acoustic musicians produce dance music of such stunning power and rhythmic vitality as to leave the electric merchants of thrash gasping by the wayside. And there’s another remarkable thing about them , too.The third member of the band is a woman. Now, women in Louisiana Cajun bands are about as common as trombones, butAnn Allen Savoy’s contributions to the Savoy Doucet Band is as essential as the pyrotechnics of her two fellows. Ann’s iron fingered guitar drives the rhythm with a metronomic tempo, while her singing, a mix of almost girlish joie de vivre and passionate soul, is royal icing on a rich cake. Not only that, she’s a distinguished folklorist whose book Cajun Music: A Reflection of a People is essential reading for anyone who wants to getbehind the tunes and learn about the culture that produced them.

Marc is “Rolls Royce” of Cajun Accordion

The Savoy Doucet Cajun Band are)-the best exponents the world has to offer...

The group combines sublime musicianship with a vital rawness...Ann Savoy’s has a lead voice of such languid sensuality that one wonders why so few women appear in Cajun bands. - - Folk Roots

One of the leaders of this generation of Cajun musicians is fiddler, accordionist and accordion maker Marc Savoy. Now in his 50’s Savoy was one of the youngest musicians to play at the first tribute to Cajun music in 1974. His wife, Ann Savoy, a naturalized Cajun who sings and plays guitar, fiddle, and accordion, is also a serious chronicler and collector of Cajun songs and music; together they are like a latter day Joseph and Cleoma Falcon. Mihael Doucet, fiddler and singer with the popular group Beausoleil, is another very influential Cajun musician who has made numerous recordings of traditional and contemporary music since the 1970s...The old songs and the tunes were learned from the greats of Cajun music,... and their combined influence and guidance has made these three musicians inti the powerhouses they are today..Nobody working on the more traditional end of the contemporary Cajun scene touches the skill, depth and warmth of this group.

Each selection exudes warmth, vitality, commitment, and an authentic bonding between performers and the material drawn from their heritage, while simultanteously delivering a front porch, down-home feel. - - Dirty Linen

If you travel to Louisiana and go to dances where the most respected of the Cajun bands are playing, yhou’ll notice that the repertoire seems to be alarmingly narrow. This recording preoves that it need not be so. The Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band creates the old house-party sound. In clubs you need that electric bass and drum kit to drive the dancers. At home with the rugs rolled up, (or in a hall blessed with a good sound system) it can be just the soul of Cajun music: accordion and fiddle trading leads, guitar providing a solid pulse that never fails and voices to add lyrics-by turns amusing or mournful. When the band is only a trio, the musicians have no place to lay out and not play. Savoy-Doucet shows just how much variety there can be when the musicians are the best. - - Sing Out!

Most of the music is the trio with tender and moving vocals and occasional pyrotechnic instrumental breaks. - - Victory Review

Finally, there’s something inspiring in the realization that artists like Michael Doucet and Ann and Marc Savoy care enough about their music and culture to rescue it from drowning in the American melting pot of homogeneous popular music (traditional Cajun music was dangerously close to becoming lost by the younger generations of Cajuns before Doucet and the Savoys started to document playing styles and traditional music). So when they play the old Cajun tunes, it’s hard not to be drawn into the rebirth, resurrection process. Listeners participate in the elan vital. At Ashkenaz, Doucet and the Savoys dug deeper into the history of Cajun music and, in the process, presented a vibrant, high-spirited, and thoroughly captivating show. It was truly a very special evening.
- - Express

“I go back to Cleoma Falcon who I use as my mentor. Joe and Cleoma’s big strength was they were husband and wife and knew each other’s music inside and out, you know. So I sing with my husband and it’s enriching to our family that we’re playing music and we’re good friends. When you live together you can play together really well.”-Ann Savoy - - Options

Marc Savoy has been playing accordion at Cajun dances annd parties for most of his fifty-seven years and is known worldwide as a master traditional player and maker. - - Boston Globe

Marc Savoy, a musician in Eunice, Louisiana, is the Toscanini of that Cajun“chank-a-chank” style..
- - Travel and Leisure

The Savoy Doucet Trio know as much about Cajun music and culture as anyone in the state. Folklorist and fiddler Michael Doucet fronts the world’s most famous band, Beausoleil. Ann Savoy has written the definitive CAJUN MUSIC, A REFLECTION OF A PEOPLE., and the fifty seven year old Marc was only the second man to make accordion in Louisiana. With Ann leading with sweet, keaning vocals, the band leaned into an easy two-step. “Go, Doucet, go!” Marc shouted as the fiddle took off.. - - Providence Phoenix