ENTERTAINMENT

Beausoleil bring Cajun rhythms on Jan. 10

BILL NUTT
CORRESPONDENT

Growing up in south Louisiana in the 1950s and 1960s, Michael Doucet was aware of his Cajun heritage. He could play banjo, guitar, and fiddle. But the idea of playing Cajun music professionally was not a high priority.

“I liked rock ’n’ roll,” says Doucet. “Cajun music wasn’t that popular. It was in French. It was old people’s music.”

However, while taking a college course on Anglo-Saxon folk music, Doucet changed his tune.

“The professor was playing all these songs, but nothing from south Louisiana,” Doucet says. “I asked him why, and he said it was because those were just English songs translated into French. I told him, ‘I don’t think so.’ ”

Emboldened, Doucet committed himself to proving that teacher wrong. He began researching Cajun music, and in 1975 he received a Folk Arts Fellowship Grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to study Cajun fiddle.

“I was fortunate enough that a lot of the old masters were still around at that time,” Doucet says. “They became my gurus.”

The year he received the grant, Doucet started a band with his brother David and a few friends. He wanted to perpetuate the music he was researching, while making it accessible to a wider audience.

Doucet named the act Beausoleil (“beautiful sun”), which was the nickname of Joseph Broussard. In 1765, Broussard led the first group of people from Acadia in Canada to Louisiana. (The name “Cajun” evolved from “Acadian.”)

In the 40 years since its founding, Beausoleil has won acclaim for achieving Doucet’s goal of introducing a wider audience to Cajun music. The band’s next stop is the Newton Theatre on Saturday.

The group has won followers among other musicians. For example, British guitarist Richard Thompson cut an album with Doucet. Beausoleil has also performed with Bonnie Raitt and Keith Richards, in addition to opening for the Grateful Dead.

In 1991, Mary-Chapin Carpenter recorded the song “Down at the Twist and Shout” with Beausoleil, and she name-checked the band in the lyrics. They performed the song at the Grammy Awards ceremony in 1992.

Five years later Beausoleil picked up its own Grammy for best traditional folk recording for its 1996 album “L’Amour ou La Folie” (Love or Folly). The band mixes Cajun rhythms with such genres as jazz, rock, zydeco, Tex-Mex, and calypso.

Doucet says that the acceptance of Beausoleil’s music is not a surprise. “This is music from the heart,” he says. “It’s telling a story. It’s music you can dance to.”

At the same time, Cajun music has its sentimental side, which surfaces in lilting waltzes and ballads. “That’s part of our culture, too,” Doucet says.

The fact that many of the band’s lyrics are in Louisiana French has never been a deterrent to the group, according to Doucet.

“A man from Connecticut came up to me and said that he loves opera, even though he doesn’t speak a word of Italian,” Doucet says. “He told me that our music hit him in the same way.”

Though 2015 marks the band’s 40th anniversary, Doucet says he has no plans for set lists that are out of the ordinary. “It’s just us,” he says with a laugh. “We’ve got 30-something albums we could play. We’ll talk about the songs. It’ll be fun.”

Doucet feels that the durability of Beausoleil reflects the culture that produced it. “There have been attempts to Americanize it,” he says. “Our culture has suffered, but it’s tenacious. It’s held together.”

BEAUSOLEIL AVEC MICHAEL DOUCET

WHAT: The Grammy-winning band from Louisiana mixes Cajun rhythms with elements of rock, Tex-Mex, and zydeco, among other genres. The group was founded in 1975 by Michael Doucet, who still plays fiddle and sings lead.

WHEN: 8 p.m. Saturday

WHERE: Newton Theatre, 234 Spring St., Newton

TICKETS: $24 to $34

INFORMATION: 973-383-3700 or www.thenewtontheatre.com.