ABCT. Come on. All right, that's more like, okay, all right. That's better, that's better. Welcome to
Saturday night, the 33rd annual Lotus World Music and Arts Festival here at the beautiful Buzz Kirk
Chumlee Theater. Take a second.
point yourself with where the nearest exit is, just in case. There's some there, there's some there,
upstairs, there are a couple up there. My name's Maya, I'm your emcee here at the theater tonight. We've
got some folks to thank, but before we do that, just want a quick reminder, give you a quick reminder
that tomorrow
There will be Festival Unwind Yoga, which begins at 9 a.m., at Nourishing Heart Yoga, located at 582
East Hillside, just south of Bryant Park. For only a $10 donation to Lotus Blossoms, you can join for
some relaxing yoga with some of Lotus's favorite wonderful local instructors.
Earlier set, we gave a shout out to the volunteers, all the awesome folks in the green t-shirts who
helped make the festival happen. Let's give them another hand. They're here at 8 a.m. They stay till 2 a.m.
to set up, break down, make all the things happen, drive artists around, do amazing things.
Festival runs on the backs of volunteers. Festival also wouldn't be possible without some amazing sponsors,
both humans and organizations and businesses. And we want to thank a few of those folks right now. First,
the Lotus Scene Savers. Their names are on the back of your Lotus program. Those folks helped make the
Sixth Street Tent possible this year, which is great. And if you spent some, yes, absolutely. Tent is back.
Also want to thank the IU Arts and Humanities Council as well as Blockhouse Studios. And then we have
a few funders, grantors that have helped support the festival this year. We want to thank first the
Bloomington Arts Commission as well as the National Endowment for the Arts and the Indiana Arts Commission
for all providing support to make the Lotus Festival happen.
There are also many local businesses, organizations, university partners, and community partners who
come together to make the festival happen. We give big thanks to them for helping make art and music,
tremendous world art and music possible here in Bloomington every year. Lotus couldn't happen without
them. And also, a quick reminder, Lotus has got a campaign going right now. They need to raise $100,000
between now and the end of the year.
If Lotus means the world to you, and you haven't been a sponsor and you haven't made a contribution,
do it now. Let's help Lotus finish strong. They need to raise $100,000 before the end of the year. Any
contribution is welcome, from $5 to...
straight up. So visit the Lotus website to make a contribution or contact them. Maybe not Monday, maybe
give them a day or two off, you know, get a rest, take a nap. But if you'd like to help, please contact
them. They'll find a way to help. Find ways to take your help however they can. So enough of that. Let us now
hear from this amazing trio of musicians. This ensemble is brought to you by the Friends of Old Time
and Celtic Music in memory of Jamie Gans. So yeah, put your hands together in memory of Jamie. So it's
my pleasure to introduce Timonde. Three remarkably accomplished musicians come together in Timonde.
a Louisiana phenomenon that's a creative fusion of classic country and out-of-the-way Cajun. With a
combined 10, count them, 10 Grammy nominations between these three members, Drew Simon, Megan Constantine,
and Kelly Jones, Tamanda combines influences ranging from early
country music, to old French and Creole ballads, to present day Cajuns. So put your hands together and
give a big Lotus welcome to Chamondi. Hello, thank you all so much. All right, hello. How's everyone
doing tonight? Hell yeah.
Good to be with y'all, we were here last night and good to be back with y'all this evening and yeah,
we're gonna play some Cajun music for y'all, some old country music in French and in English and some
ballads and invite y'all to dance. People were dancing last night, you know, don't be shy. Yeah, so
we'll start off with a little two-step something called the Bombay Bounce.
Et petit, moi je m'en va, moi tu serres à la maison J'ai plus personne pour m'aimer, comment tu crois,
mais moi je m'en va faire
et tu m'as promis que tu aurais venu à la maison pour me joindre mais aujourd'hui mes cadans là tu
veux vu moi
Et Timon, tu m'as promis ton revenu à la maison Et pour me joindre, mais aujourd'hui me gardons là,
tu ne veux plus moi
Thank you, thank you, thank you so much. So how many of y'all were not here last night? Cool deal. Well,
this is Cajun music from South Louisiana, and we are Timond, and the word Timond is French for petit
monde, it's little world, and it's used as a term of endearment in a lot of Cajun songs, as my little
world, my everything. We said it in the last song, it meant my little world, my everything.
And we're gonna do another nice little waltz now. I'd like to feature over here on the rhythm guitar,
Mrs. Megan Constantin. Thank you all so much. Thank you. This next song is called La Valse de Tila.
And Tila was a young woman. Well, I don't know. I think that was her real name. And the songwriter,
Vin Bruce, wrote this about her. And he said, Tila.
I'm waiting for you at the chapel. I hope you come and meet me because a life without you is no life
at all. And a beautiful little love song.
Thank you so much. Thank you, thank you. So how many of y'all have heard KJ Music before? Hey, a lot.
Awesome. Yeah, well, we're on a little bitty tour. We drove up, played in Birmingham on Thursday night
and played here last night and tonight, and we're headed back to Birmingham tomorrow. And then Lafayette,
Lafayette on Monday morning. Anybody ever been down to Lafayette, Louisiana?
Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. That's where we're from. And so, yes, good to be up here in the cold weather.
It feels good outside. I was saying last night, it feels good to wear a jacket, you know. It's nice.
It's been a while. It's been a while. It's been a while. We'll do another nice little tune. I'd like
to make welcome Miss Kelly Jones on the fiddle over here. Yeah, we're going to do a little kind of bluesy
song that we got from the
archives at the university in Lafayette, but it's from one of the Lomax field recordings back in 1934,
a while back, but it's kind of a combination of two different field recordings, but this is called J'ai
vu le ciel, which means I saw the sky.
Yeah.
I saw the sheriff who was my protuco I asked him what he wanted He said to my sister I was his prisoner
I asked him what he was doing He said to my sister I had stolen nannas I hung my hair, his prisoner
But as a beautiful woman it was the best Oh I took the cat
Let me run and shout my name.
Thank y'all. A fun little one. As any of you, I've never seen one of these instruments before.
A few people. So this is a Cajun accordion. It's built in South Louisiana. These two have been built
for me some years back. And yeah, they're kind of like big harmonicas, right? It's the same.
theory behind it, push and pull. It's not like a piano accordion where you press one of those keys,
push and pull, saying this is different, push and pull. So it's very limited in what it can do. So we
do this next song by a great Cajun accordion player. I said last night there's a theater back home.
It's called the Liberty Theater in Eunice, Louisiana. And it looks pretty close to this.
Standing on the stage, it reminds me a lot of that. And so this is a little nicer, I do believe. But
they are trying to fix it up, so hopefully it can look just like this. But it's in Eunice, Louisiana,
where the guy who made that accordion lives. And probably the first place I saw this next guy who wrote
this next song, Play, was at the Liberty Theater. His name's Paul Daigle. He's a famous occasion accordion
player, great singer. And this song was written back,
maybe in the 80s, maybe in the 70s. It's called Chat Alain, which means my dear Alain is the name. And
my favorite verse says, if I was to run for president, my platform would be there would be no more Sunday
mornings. Every day would be Saturday. So you wake up, it'd be Saturday. So you can go to out that night
and have a good time and dance. Wake up the next morning, guess what? It's Saturday again. Keep doing
it over and over again. If only.
Hey, yeah, Groundhog Day. Well, yeah, it's a cool little tune and you don't hear it too much anymore.
Some call Shadowland.
And in the vases and the boats of the steppe Until the day is done
Every morning, Saturday, Saturday morning Every evening, Saturday evening with my dear Alain
Et je vais courir pour président si tu veux voter pour moi Si je gagne mon jet de première et fumer
du matin Tous les matins ça sera samedi, tous les soirs samedi au soir Tous les soirs samedi au soir
avec ma chère Alain
The one thing I do at the Liberty Theater, you can smell the popcorn. Is there popcorn here? Okay. I
see some popcorn. You can smell it. Before they fixed it up, they've been probably using the same batch
of popcorn stuff from the 80s. It's got that certain smell. It does. It does. All right, this next song
we're going to play is called the Newport Waltz. It's written by
a fellow named Dewey Balfa, Dewey Balfa, he was a famous fiddler, yeah. So this is the 33rd year of
this, right? He might have, I don't know, we heard his daughter, Balfa Toujour, played here some years
back, but Dewey was really one of the first ones to travel out of state and play festivals like this,
you know, for people sitting down. He played his whole life for people standing up and dancing,
you know, he wasn't used to people sitting down
and listening. But in 1964, he was invited to go to the Newport Folk Festival out in Rhode Island. And
before he went, he told a lot of his family and friends that he was going. And he said, why are you
going? You're going to get laughed off the stage. You're going to get booed. Why are you going to do
this? Nobody wants to hear Cajun music, French Cajun music in Rhode Island.
because he was opening up for people like Joan Baez and Pete Seeger, big Bob Dylan, you know, big folk
people at the time. And so he went anyway and he played, they played after their first song. It was
like a standing ovation of thousands and thousands of people. So he got, yeah, it was a very big moment
in our culture. And so he went back home and he said, you know what, if people in Rhode Island can appreciate
it, I think people,
down home should appreciate it as well. So he made this big revival of Louisiana French Cajun music,
and it's one of the reasons why we're here today playing in front of y'all right now. So yeah, it's
called the Newport Waltz. It's in French, and does anybody speak French? A few people?
Anyway, it's okay. We're not the songs. We're not singing about y'all. Don't worry But it says if with
you want to have a good time go to the Newport Folk Festival I had a barrel of fun and made a lot of
friends and it's a great place to go That's pretty much the gist of the song. But anyway, here we go.
Here's the Newport walls by do about
Oh, you go to Newport, to the festival Oh, you go to Newport
J'aimerais que tu l'éclates Si tu veux un bon tempo festival
Thank you, thank you, thank you dancers. Merci beaucoup. Yeah, we're gonna strip it down even more.
I know you guys have had a lot of bands with a bunch of people on the stage and we're already stripping
it down a little bit from those.
We're gonna do a couple ballads that we like to do. Megan and I like to learn these antiquated French
ballads from Louisiana, but we love them so much. This one is called Flambeau d'Amour, which is a flame
of love. And we got it from a woman named Alma Barthelmy. And there's lots of different versions of
this song throughout
the history of ballads. There's some French versions, some French-Canadian versions, and even versions
in other languages. And it's basically about a woman who, her father locks her in a tower. It's kind
of Rapunzel-esque, I suppose. He locks her in a tower so her bow won't court her, won't come court her,
her lover. And her lover walks night and day to be near the tower. She's locked in, and she sees that
he's walked himself to the brink of death. So she says,
I'm going to give you some of my, that's kind of cryptic, but sounds like an early failed blood transfusion.
Give me some of your blood and I'll run it with my healthy blood and I'll heal you. But it doesn't work,
surprise. And so then she asks for a white handkerchief to bury the heart of her lover. Yeah.
You know, I hate when that happens. So yeah. Flambeau d'amour. And it sounds as sad as it is. Unlike
the other songs that sound happy and are sad. C'était une fille de quinze ans Il n'avait pas trois mois
D'un bon matin, d'un grand matin,
Thank you so much. Bien merci. La prochaine, the next one is something called Goodbye, my Cher Ami,
and Goodbye, my Dear Friend. And it's one that we learned from Selena Guidri? No, Marie Lange. Yeah.
Marie Lange, a little girl on a playground. Maybe, I don't know how old she was, 12 maybe.
I think he said she was in like fifth grade or something. Yeah, playing on the playground and a folklorist
was there making recordings of people and she had this beautiful little song to sing for that person
and had the sweetest little voice and the first time I ever heard her sing I was listening,
I don't know, it was 2007 and I'm listening to these ballads on my iPod in my car and I had to turn off
the road, stop on the side of the road, and listen to it over and over again. The first time I heard
it, it was just so striking, her voice. And so we're so grateful for the archives that are housed at
UL Lafayette, the university there. And we get songs like this that link Louisiana back centuries to
Europe and beyond. And yeah, elsewhere. This is kind of a lot of y'all
probably play music as well, you're obviously music lovers, but there's a verse in this song that is
basically, it's in a lot of Appalachian songs and English ballads and probably other languages as well
that I don't even know, but the kind of classic verse of my horses aren't hungry and they won't eat
your hay and I'll be on my way, basically. And so this was in French and when we learned it I was like,
oh, interesting, you know. And almost the same phrasing, so. Yeah. Yeah, but I like to get nerdy like that.
We'll do two. We do. So yeah. Goodbye, ma chère amie. On va chanter premièrement. Yeah. Goodbye, ma
chère amie. J'ai venu te dire adieu. Je suis survenue aujourd'hui. C'est pas l'amour de toi.
Goodbye, my dear friend. I came to say goodbye to you. I'm sure that today, it's not the love of you.
From Seine to Cheval, and Melis to Zangar. In the nest of the eaten hay, sit next to me.
Oh,
J'ai bien dans l'esprit J'ai bien dans l'esprit Goodbye ma chale amie J'ai venu te dire adieu J'suis
survenue aujourd'hui C'est pas l'amour de toi
you.
Thank you so much. Once again, Kelly Jones and Megan Constantin. A little duet there. We got time for
a few more little songs for y'all. And about a year ago, we had our latest album come out. It's called
Petit Paradis, which is for sale under the little merchandise tent over there. We got some vinyl and
some CDs. So if you like what you hear, a lot of the music playing tonight is on those records.
The next one is actually on it, too. It's called the Black Bayou One Step. And we're getting Megan to
play the triangle over here. Or in Cajun French, we call it la tifade, which means little iron. A cool
little tune we learned from a guy named Anatole Crader. And it's called the Black Bayou One Step.
for dancing too, it really makes us feel at home. Absolutely. Thank you, thank you. Thank you all for
supporting this wonderful festival as well. This is our first time playing in Indiana and hope to be
back, you know. Yep, yep, yep. We have a very, thank you all. We have a very, probably the biggest festival
in Cajun and Zydeco Creole music in the world is next weekend down home in Lafayette, it's called Festival.
Acadia y Creol, it's always the second, yeah, second full weekend in October. And hopefully the weather
will be like this, but probably won't, but. It'll be a little quick, it won't be as hot, but. It's happened
before. It'll be dusty, but yeah. Invite y'all, if you ever have a chance to come down to South Louisiana,
come down in April. In October, those are the really good months with nice festivals and everything.
We're doing a little tune that we recorded
On our newest album, it's called Je me suis marié. It's an old wedding song, people, which means Je
me suis marié means I am married. I got married. And it's an old wedding song. They would sing back
in the day. And it was actually a ballad when I first heard it by Dewey Balfour. And I just thought
it would be cool to put some music behind it. So here we go. Je me suis marié.
Je me suis marié et j'ai des grèdes dans l'âme de la femme que j'ai prise, oh la cruel élefante.
Elle va au cabaret, elle croit et elle s'en aime et qu'on a bien ses mots et elle est pas contente.
I washed it, I washed it, it shines like a star. And the girl is hungry, but she's not very happy yet.
She has a pinch of salt, but she doesn't see the earth. The plate is broken, but she doesn't see the nose.
Jean de la Compagne Prend des exemples du monde Ne laissez pas votre femme porter des pantalons En lui
donnant les pantalons Assurance en passant Assurance en passant Maîtresse de la maison
We got time for two more tunes for y'all, and we're gonna be here sticking around, seeing other musicians
after us. We'll do some, it's not on the set list, but you know what? I don't like to follow set lists
that often. It's more like a menu, not really a list, I don't like to follow it, I like to pick and
choose, but we'll do a song, it's back in the old dance hall days, you know, they'd usually be waltz,
two-step, waltz, two-step,
Back and forth like that and we're gonna do our last waltz of the night and it's probably been played
a lot of times as the last waltz because coincidentally, it's called the last waltz by Aldous Roger
and the Lafayette Playboys and the song says before you leave all I ask even if you're leaving with
somebody else just just give me that last dance to dance with Another happy one
Thank you so much. Well, we got time for one more song. Thank you so much for coming, and we hope y'all
had a good time tonight. There's so much amazing music here this weekend. Thank y'all for coming and
joining us for our set. We really are glad to be here, and we hope to come back. We've had a beautiful
time. And once again, Megan Constantin on rhythm guitar and vocals.
Thank you so much. Kelly Jones on piddle and vocals. Oh, and Drew Sima on accordion and vocals, everybody.
Thank you, thank you. Merci beaucoup. So one thing we like to do, we like to take old country music,
and if we like it, to maybe translate it to French. If it fits with the accordion, good. If not,
oh well. I'm going to do it anyway.
for the next three and a half minutes and hope you like it or not. So this is a tune we learned from
a Louisiana musician, country musician, Webb Pierce. Webb Pierce was a country musician in the 50s and
60s and did a song called I Don't Care. Ricky Skaggs recorded it later on and we recorded it some years
back and half in French and half in English. So hope you enjoy it. Thank you all so much again. Hope
to see you all next time.
So I'll be the last. I don't care if I'm not the first one you kiss. Darling, I'll never ask. Yesterday's
gone, just love it from now on. True to me, forget about the past.
on just so I'll be the last
My dear, don't ask. Yesterday, when I loved you for a long time, I forgot the past.
Yesterday's gone, just love me from now on
I've forsaken all others in the past For I don't care if I'm not the first love you've known Just so
I'll be the last Oh, yes indeed. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for dancing.
Merci beaucoup, you'll have a good night. We are Timon.