What better way to ring in the New Year than spending New Year's Eve with much-loved and respected blues guitarist Tab Benoit's Swampland Jam, performing at the venerable House of Blues, Foundation Room, Friday, December 31. Show: 10pm. Tickets: $45.-$110. Must be 18 and over. 225 Decatur St. Info: (504) 310-1971 or visit here. Also performing: Whiskey Bayou Records recording artist, guitarist Alastair Greene.
One of Summer 2021's great touring ensembles was Tab Benoit's Swampland Jam (pictured above) featuring Louisiana Bayou musical treasures Big Chief Monk Boudreaux, along with Johnny Sansone, Waylon Thibodeaux, and Benoit.
Big Chief Monk Boudreaux was just honored with a 2021-22 Grammy for his "Bloodstains & Teardrops" album on Whiskey Bayou Records, co-produced by Benoit and Williams. Boudreaux incorporates African Rhythms and Mardi Gras Chants into his own original style of Rhythm and Blues. Boudreaux is the Big Chief of the Golden Eagles, a legendary Mardi Gras Indian tribe. He is widely known for his long-time collaboration with Big Chief Bo Dollis in The Wild Magnolias. In 2016, Boudreaux received a National Endowment for the Arts National Heritage Fellowship in Washington, DC.
Johnny Sansone goes deep into Bayou Blues and Zydeco with his roof shaking vocals, harmonica and accordion. Sansone has won numerous awards in the Crescent City, including multiple categories for Offbeat magazine's annual "Best of the Beat” competition.
Waylon Thibodeaux rounds out the Jam on vocals and fiddle. Born in Louisiana’s ‘Bayou Country’ just a few miles southwest of New Orleans, Houma native Waylon Thibodeaux has been dubbed “Louisiana’s Rockin Fiddler”. His rollicking, Cajun and zydeco rhythms never fail to serve up a good helping of spicy, high-energy Louisiana fun.
The Grammy-nominated Tab Benoit, known throughout his thirty-plus -year career for his environmental activism, performed two nights in his hometown of Houma at the memorable 16th Annual Voice of the Wetlands Festival. He also appears prominently in the IMax motion picture Hurricane on the Bayou, a documentary of Hurricane Katrina's effects and a call to protect and restore the Wetlands, and produced a CD to help restore that state's Coastal Wetlands. Benoit was inducted into the Louisiana Folklife Center Hall of Master Folk Artists in 2020.
