Adcock looks out for bayou brethren
September 30, 2005
BY DAVE HOEKSTRA Staff Reporter


Swamp-pop legend Charles "C.C." Adcock apologized for talking so long. In the most normal of times, the Lafayette, La., native has a lot on his mind. But these are not the most normal of times for Adcock.
He is the guitarist for Li'l Band o' Gold, and his Cowboy Stew Blues Revue includes Lil' Buck Senegal, longtime guitarist for the late Clifton Chenier. Adcock's most recent record, "Lafayette Marquis" (Yep Roc), features the last production from legendary producer Jack Nitzsche (Neil Young, Rolling Stones, Phil Spector).
Adcock has been on the road as opening act for Lucinda Williams while keeping an eye on his beloved southwest Louisiana. Adcock (accompanied by Lafayette accordion and fiddle player Cedric Watson) and Williams appear in a sold-out show Saturday night at the Vic Theatre.
"People need to hear this music now more than ever," Adcock said earlier this week before a show at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville, Tenn. "A lot of Lucinda's songs are set to a Louisiana backdrop, and between my little thing and her thing people have been re-enacting Jazz Fest and all that."

In the scattered days following Hurricane Katrina, Adcock's "Disgraceland" loft complex in downtown Lafayette served as a home for displaced New Orleans musicians. Adcock has taken in members of the Iguanas, Susan Cowsill, Ani DiFranco and Mike Napolitano, the producer of "Lafayette Marquis." They have played music, shared stories and eaten gumbo (without tomatoes, a Lafayette tradition) into the early hours of the morning. One night they sang the new Lil' Band o' Gold cover of the Bobby Charles love song "Please Don't Let Me Go to New Orleans." Lafayette (population 110,00) is 130 miles west of New Orleans.
"Disgraceland" was created years ago by Adcock, and his Lil' Band of Gold horn player/visual artist Dickie Landry. Landry's resume ranges from 1950s Lafayette soul bands to his avant-garde work with Laurie Anderson, Talking Heads and others. "By two weeks out the place was filled with friends of friends of friends," Adcock said. "That's cool. You try to comfort people. Life goes on, and Lafayette was rocking. Dickie was cooking etouffee. We were frying fish. When Ani [DiFranco] was around, it was lovely to hear her play. Frankly, I only knew her socially. It's been a long time since someone played guitar like that in my house -- especially a girl. There were an extra 100,000 people in town, and most of them are planning to stay there. There was a lot of strange energy around."
Strange energy is sure to fill the stage on Saturday. Adcock's Cajun-tinged "Runaway Life" takes on new life since the time he wrote it for "Lafayette Marquis."

"That was originally a Creole poem we wrote about a runaway slave trying to cross the Mississippi River to rebuild his life in southwest Louisiana," Adcock explained. "He is hallucinating as he comes closer to his death in the swamp. But that is one of those songs that doesn't take too much tricking around with, in that there's so many people who feel like runaways right now. When I've been singing that song I've definitely been thinking about those people."

Adcock then sang from the song:
"... Running through the cypress shadows/just to save my life/I'm a man whose been through hell/ yeah, we know it well/I'm ready for my final day with the devil/ooh yeah its a runaway life/oh yeah gotta run tonight/misery is a runaway's life/goin' down down down/ drown in Atchafalaya. ..."
Adcock, 33, began calling his New Orleans friends on the Saturday before the hurricane hit (Aug. 29). He said, "I won't name names, but I got a lot of, 'I've been out all night, I need some sleep, can you call back in an hour?' That's New Orleans for you. Alex Chilton's girlfriend was at my house. Alex decided to stick around, then had strange stories of trying to get out of town yet trying to be inconspicuous so he wouldn't get caught up in the [crime] that was going down in the streets of New Orleans. But it was great for people to see our little corner of the world. It was great to see someone like Ani out at El Sido's [in Lafayette] listening to Keith Franco's zydeco on a Saturday night. She was dancing all night. It kept people preoccupied."
As early as the Thursday following Hurricane Katrina, Adcock, DiFranco and Napolitano drove back into New Orleans to retrieve records, tapes and hard drives. Adcock has been writing songs since Katrina and Rita, but he needs time to process his thoughts.

In the meantime, he will try to focus on "Lafayette Marquis," one of the best roots-rock records of last year. The roadhouse beat of Adcock's "Stealin' All Day" is an appropriate signoff for Nitzsche, whose last rock production was in 1979 with Graham Parker's "Squeezing Out Sparks." Nitzsche, who died in 2000, was nominated for an Oscar for his 1975 score for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest." The Chicago native was a fan of Adcock's only other solo record, a 1994 self-titled debut for Island Records. "Stealin' All Day" was recorded in 1997.
"Jack's process of producing was not the most economical and efficient," Adcock explained. "But it was certainly grand and wonderful. It wasn't the way people produce things today, like sitting down for a couple of hours to figure out what reverb to use. He wanted to get inside your head and inside your life. We became very close and slightly entangled in each other's lives.
"He dug 'Stealin' All Day.' Jack understood roots music and he liked simple things, which sounds funny to say about a man whose work is so complex. He had a firm handle on Wagner and orchestral things [Nitzsche did the choral arrangement for the Stones' 'You Can't Always Get What You Want'], but he loved Johnny 'Guitar' Watson and Howlin' Wolf. It was the last song he ever produced, although he did other things on me I haven't released."

LUCINDA WILLIAMS, C.C. ADCOCK
When: 8 p.m. Saturday
Where: Vic Theatre, 3145 N. Sheffield
Tickets: Sold out