Amis du Teche

Young Cajun Musicians Bring Breaux Bridge Sizzle to Crawfish Festival Stage

In one sense, music is short-lived. You sing a song, you fiddle a tune, and it’s over in less than four minutes. But in another sense, music lives longer than any of us. Like fire that passes from one candle to another, the performer sparks the listener, the teacher sparks the student, and on and on it goes.

When I met up with Amelia Powell and Adeline Miller—who will be performing with their band Amis du Teche at the Crawfish Festival in Breaux Bridge this Friday—I knew right away that the spark of Cajun music is alive and well today.

Adeline Miller and Amelia Powell of Amis du Teche

The friends and musical collaborators have been playing together for ten years, and it shows, their guitar and fiddle driving the songs forward, as tightly intertwined as their keening vocal harmonies. On a dock on the western bank of Bayou Teche, they sang and played four songs, slipping in and out of traditional songs like Bayou Teche Waltz, Les Flammes d’Enfer and J’ai Vu le Loup with ease. They also performed an original song—C’est la Dernière Fois, a slow, sorrowful waltz written by Miller—that surely has a long life ahead of it.

With their recently released, self-titled album, which they recorded with the rest of their band—Laykin Usie on drums and Robert Miller on bass—and fresh from appearances this year at South by Southwest and Festival International, Amis du Teche are bright lights in the vibrant traditional music scene playing out across Louisiana and beyond today.

Cajun music is as popular as it ever was. On any day of the week in St. Martin Parish, you can hear a live Cajun band. Fiddles and accordions are cool, according to people of all ages. But it wasn’t always clear that things would turn out this way. As children we go through a stage of distancing ourselves from the things our parents love, but through the dedication and generosity of the keepers of the flame, and the perpetual light that seems to inhabit the heart of the Cajun tradition—whether the gently aching glow of a slow-burning lament, or the fireworks that find your feet and make you want to dance—the fire burns brighter than ever.

Miller can recall the exact moment her interest in fiddle began. She was only eight years old. Fascinated one afternoon by a fiddler playing fiddle in Breaux Bridge, she approached him with curiosity, and when he told her, “You know, you could play the fiddle, too,” in that moment the spark was passed. Powell grew up surrounded by sparks. Her father, Dirk Powell is a fiddler, banjo player and singer. Her mother, Christine Balfa, is a singer and guitarist, who learned from her father Dewey, a giant of Cajun music, who in turn learned from his father, who learned from his mother. And on and on it goes.

You can find videos of Powell and Miller on the Visit St. Martin Parish Facebook page, or better yet, see Amis du Teche live this Friday, May 3rd at the Crawfish Festival, and watch the sparks fly for yourself.