Cajun guitarist spins yarns with his tunes

By Derek Paiva
Advertiser Entertainment Writer

•	David Doucet 8 p.m. today Orvis Auditorium, UH-Manoa $20 general; $15 students, seniors, military, UH faculty and staff 956-6878 for tickets, 956-3836 or outreach.hawaii.edu for more information On Doucet's CD player: "Legacy" — Doc Watson and David Holt; also, Merle Travis, Bunk Johnson, Charlie Christian, Sonny Chillingworth, Ledward Ka'apana

Doucet, you see, has for the last 27 years lent his deft, no-nonsense style of acoustic flatpicking almost exclusively to the musical output of Beausoleil, one of the most innovative and critically lauded Cajun bands to come out of the wilds of the American South.

On the Grammy-winning band's two Hawai'i concert stops thus far (the last in 1999), Doucet (pronounced Doo-SHAY), as is his custom, stood out musically mostly by standing back.

Older brother Michael may have the stratospheric vox, swashbuckling stage presence and Jake Shimabukuro-esque way with a fiddle that keeps the Beausoleil faithful's eyes wide open. But David (as only hinted at in the few live solo turns per show he does with Beausoleil) keeps it real by dropping the rhythmic anchor that keeps the band's ship steady.

When Beausoleil isn't on the road at one of the hundred-plus shows it does annually, David Doucet can be found playing most Sundays at Kingpin, a neighborhood bar not far from his home. There, you can grab the bar's signature dirty-Pompadour concoction and join him in the Elvis-themed Jungle Room for Cajun song and stories. But be warned, the man loves a good yarn.

"I was lucky that when we were first starting off with Beausoleil, that a lot of the old guys ... were still alive," said Doucet, his voice sweetened by the gentlest of bayou drawls. "We'd go over and play with these guys before they died, and learn their songs.

"The one thing (I) can't do at a (Beausoleil) show is tell someone about the guy (I) learned the song from. And I think it's important to know what these people were like. It gives the listener a deeper view of what the culture is."

Doucet shared a song from his and Beausoleil's repertoire about a battery of Louisiana troops conscripted to bring cannons to France for the Napoleonic wars. They wound up getting financially stiffed by the emperor. He first heard the story and song from a rural Louisiana resident.

"He would sing songs about kings and queens and Napoleon. ... And everybody in town thought this guy was a complete nut," Doucet said. "But you know something? He learned all of those songs from his grandparents. And they were real stories! So stuff like that is what I do when I explain the songs."

Doucet has released two solo CDs, the most recent a 1999 disc of acoustic Cajun guitar called "1957." The recording is a richly nuanced collection of mostly early-20th-century Cajun compositions in which the traditional fiddle and accordion leads have been creatively adapted by the musician for solo guitar.

After taking nearly a decade to select compositions where the accordion and fiddle could be more easily translated into the fingerpicking style of his solo work (his Beausoleil flatpicking employs the use of a pick), Doucet spent a year's worth of six-hour days on adaptation and tuning.

A longtime fan of Hawaiian-style slack-key, he credits a handful of its most-lauded practitioners for some of his inspiration.

"Just like with slack-key, I think just about every (adaptation for solo Cajun guitar) probably has its own tuning," said Doucet. "The challenge is trying to find the tuning that fits the melody. And I learned that from reading about Sonny (Chillingworth) and Ledward (Ka'apana) on that whole slack-key series from Dancing Cat Records."

Differences between the two genres in technique, rhythm and chord progressions are substantial, but "I probably spend half of my shows tuning guitar," said Doucet, laughing. "I travel with just one guitar."

Among Doucet's short list of guitar heroes — most prominently, Doc Watson and Richard Thompson — are Chillingworth and Ray Kane. He called the opportunity to showcase his solo work in their back yard "overwhelming" and "cool," but "a little intimidating."

"I've been practicing a couple of slack-key songs that I know ... but I think one might be ambitious enough," said Doucet, chuckling. "Of course, I've learned one of the hardest ones there is. I don't know even know the name of it, but it's a Sonny Chillingworth song.

"And he's not the easiest guy to learn from."