{"id":6681,"date":"2017-08-17T07:00:33","date_gmt":"2017-08-17T12:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/?p=6681"},"modified":"2017-08-16T13:36:27","modified_gmt":"2017-08-16T18:36:27","slug":"tab-benoit-voice-wetlands-festival","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/2017\/08\/17\/tab-benoit-voice-wetlands-festival\/","title":{"rendered":"Tab Benoit: Voice Of The Wetlands Festival"},"content":{"rendered":"

Where Guitar Firepower Meets Wetlands Activism<\/em><\/p>\n

Story By\u00a0Brett Milano<\/em><\/p>\n

Photo By Jerry Moran<\/em><\/p>\n

How did one of Louisiana\u2019s meanest guitar-slingers become a tireless wetlands activist? For Tab Benoit, it was simply a matter of taking a good look around. And when fans from around the country come to Benoit\u2019s Voice of the Wetlands (VOW) festival in Houma next month, he hopes they\u2019ll take a good look for themselves.<\/p>\n

As a blues-rock guitarist and bandleader, Benoit tears up the clubs nightly. He hit one of his favorite local haunts, Luna Live, in Lake Charles in early July; and August and September found him covering ground from New Orleans to Dallas to Las Vegas, on up to Colorado and back.<\/p>\n

But this time of year also finds Benoit prepping for his annual party with a purpose \u2014 a weekend (October 13-15) of music prompted by a concern close to his heart.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cWe lose an acre of wetlands every hour; 24 acres every day,\u201d he says. \u201cDo the math on that, and we\u2019re talking about an astronomical amount that\u2019s being lost. But unless you get out of the cities and into the towns, it\u2019s not something that you\u2019re going to see \u2014 until a storm comes along and you start seeing water where you never saw any before.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now in its 14th year, Voice of the Wetlands (which moved two years ago to its current location, 5403 West Park in Houma) is a themed festival with a difference. It\u2019s not a benefit, since Benoit says that cash wouldn\u2019t do much good \u2014 \u201cYou can\u2019t go buy the wetlands back from the oil companies.\u201d And you won\u2019t hear a lot of preaching from the stage, since he never appreciates hearing that kind of thing himself.<\/p>\n

What you will hear is three days of great music with a south Louisiana slant. The roster includes two of the region\u2019s great, long-running rock \u2018n\u2019 roll bands \u2014 Dash Rip Rock and Louisiana\u2019s Le Roux \u2014 plus younger rockers Colin Lake and the Honey Island Swamp Band, zydeco giant Chubby Carrier, and the funky jamming trio of George Porter Jr. and Brian Stoltz (half of the Funky Meters) with ace drummer Johnny Vidacovich.<\/p>\n

The weekend\u2019s usual highlight is the \u201cFriday Night Guitar Fights,\u201d where Benoit faces off with the other best guitarists in the house. Expect enough six-string firepower to set the swamps ablaze.<\/p>\n

Still, Benoit does have an ulterior motive. He figures nothing will make people care about the plight of the wetlands like getting them out to where it\u2019s happening. Once they take in the music, the local scenery and the Cajun cooking, they\u2019re more likely to get the picture \u2014 especially if they take the festival\u2019s plane rides over the coast.<\/p>\n

Benoit is a pilot himself; his original career plan involved airplanes instead of guitars. He\u2019s flown oil execs and tourists over the wetlands, and the aerial view of the disappearing coastline set him on course as an environmental activist.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s probably why I got involved before a lot of people did. You can\u2019t see it by driving along the coast in your car. At the festival we have airlines on call all day long. In fact, if people come to Hammond Air Service in Houma any time during the year, Charlie Hammond will take them up. People take the flight, and in less than an hour they learn what they need to know: here\u2019s what it used to look like, and here\u2019s what it looks like now. They come back shocked.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was still pre-Katrina when Benoit began advocating for the wetlands. What he found at the time was a lot of empty public meetings and general indifference. In that respect, he says things haven\u2019t changed too much, and the erosion hasn\u2019t slowed down.<\/p>\n

But he did see one positive sign when Gov. John Edwards declared a state of emergency in June. \u201cThat\u2019s something I had been waiting for, and I thought it was a great move on our governor\u2019s part \u2014 especially since he\u2019s from the northern part of the state. Though you can\u2019t say exactly what it accomplished … Maybe there\u2019s at least more talk about this on the Hill than there was before. What they need to realize is that we\u2019re in a state of emergency all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

You\u2019d think that Benoit might be feeling less optimistic as the festival heads into the Trump era, but you\u2019d be wrong. \u201cI don\u2019t think it makes any difference \u2014 no President has ever helped us, no matter who it was. I had friends in Obama\u2019s administration, and they wouldn\u2019t bring it up either. Nobody wants to talk about the wetlands until the next storm comes along. And if you thought Katrina was bad, you just wait.\u201d<\/p>\n

Strong words indeed. And they bring up the question of what any concerned folks can do when festival time is over. Benoit\u2019s answer is simple: Go hit your local government and hit it hard.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re saying \u2018I\u2019m just going to vote,\u2019 you\u2019re missing the whole point of democracy. You\u2019ve got to show up; you\u2019ve got to speak out and be part of the solution. And that doesn\u2019t mean going to protests, because you get water-bombed out of the scenario. But there are public meetings going on every week. So get off the couch and make an appointment. That office they\u2019re working in \u2014 that\u2019s your office; you paid for that.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd when everybody starts calling out, that\u2019s when the problems start going away. So if I\u2019m doing anything here, it\u2019s trying to get people involved. Because what you see happening down here with the wetlands \u2014 that\u2019s a good example of what happens when they don\u2019t get involved.\u201d<\/p>\n

The VOW Festival\u00a0 isn\u2019t the only ambitious project Benoit\u2019s taken on in recent years. He now has his own record label as well. Whiskey Bayou Records was officially launched four years ago, when Benoit produced some sessions for south Louisiana legends Dash Rip Rock. The resulting album Dash Does Shaver (devoted to the songs of Texas songwriter Billy Joe Shaver) was largely a stone-country album that stood apart from the band\u2019s swamp-rocking output.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost people wouldn\u2019t think they could do traditional country that well. I had them singing like the Gatlin Brothers on some of those songs. And I got to play pedal steel, which was pretty cool as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

That whetted Benoit\u2019s appetite for getting behind the control board, and he started recruiting some lesser-known players from in and around Houma. The label\u2019s newest release, Step Out by guitarist Jeff McCarty, was unveiled at the Rock & Bowl in New Orleans in July; Benoit turned up for the occasion to play drums as he did on the CD.<\/p>\n

For Benoit, the label is part of another personal mission: to get area musicians out of cover-band limbo and provide an outlet for their own material. \u201cLots of people in New Orleans do the cover-band thing because it\u2019s so easy. You do songs people know; they give you money. Then they walk out and nobody remembers anything.<\/p>\n

\u201cJeff was one of those guys who got tired of that. The label is about trying to get some real music going on. I do all the production, the engineering, the mixing and mastering \u2014 basically everything except the artwork. We do things the old way, which means that you play what you feel right now. We record live and sometimes we write the songs as we go along. If the guys in the studio have a good feeling going on and it feels like a great moment, odds are that they\u2019re going to play great. My job is to make sure that the red light is on.\u201d<\/p>\n

The label will also release Benoit\u2019s next album (the follow-up to 2015\u2019s Medicine) once he gets around to making it. But he\u2019s in no hurry; for Benoit and his trio the real story is what happens night after night in the clubs.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery day is a new day, so I go out there and play on that day. It\u2019s never about going out and playing exactly what we\u2019d rehearsed. They come out different every time.\u201d<\/p>\n

And wherever the band goes, they bring some of south Louisiana with them. \u201cPeople hear that in our sound, and I think that comes from the different rhythms \u2014 the more syncopated grooves that come out of New Orleans. We really are the northern part of the Caribbean, and our whole culture reflects that: the food and the music. You could have a whole radio station based on the music of Louisiana. Every genre of music you can name is represented right here in this one little place.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Where Guitar Firepower Meets Wetlands Activism Story By\u00a0Brett Milano Photo By Jerry Moran How did one of Louisiana\u2019s meanest guitar-slingers become a tireless wetlands activist? For Tab Benoit, it was simply a matter of taking a good look around. And when fans from around the country come to Benoit\u2019s Voice of the Wetlands (VOW) festival [&hellip<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":6682,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1559,413,4,1560,1558,1557],"yoast_head":"\nTab Benoit: Voice Of The Wetlands Festival - BestOfSwla<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/bestofswla.com\/2017\/08\/17\/tab-benoit-voice-wetlands-festival\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tab Benoit: Voice Of The Wetlands Festival - BestOfSwla\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Where Guitar Firepower Meets Wetlands Activism Story By\u00a0Brett Milano Photo By Jerry Moran How did one of Louisiana\u2019s meanest guitar-slingers become a tireless wetlands activist? 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