Pass the crawdads!e

Big Al and the Heavyweights' Cajun-flavored blues

By Don Fluckinger

Most "party" bands are comprised of backyard hacks who cry out for respect, wanting to be considered legitimate, serious musicians. New Orleans Cajun blues band Big Al and the Heavyweights -- who play Friday at Gilrein's -- are just the opposite. Yes, they're legit, the members having played with everyone on the circuit from Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown to Gov't Mule's Warren Haynes. But they insist on being considered nothing but a good-time party band.

"I'll leave all the messages and everything to the Neville Brothers, you know, `love your brother,' `love your sister,'" says drummer "Big Al" Lauro. "Big Al and the Heavyweights' [philosophy] is `Let's have a beer and eat some crawfish.'"

Despite the lack of a social agenda and sometimes over-simplified lyrics (such as a joyous call-and-response chorus of "eat more crawfish!" in the song bearing the same title), don't get the idea that Big Al and the Heavyweights are lackadaisical when it comes to live performance. They play crisp, danceable Texas-Chicago blues-rock sprinkled with Cajun rhythms and cultural connotations, as well as occasional Southern groove-rock jams that hark back to the days when Haynes (who cut his teeth with the Allman Brothers Band) was a sometimes Heavyweight.

Nevertheless, Cajun cooking and the walking neighborhood fais do-do parties are a frequent subject of Big Al and the Heavyweights' songs. Lauro grew up in Louisiana; the stories and sentiments come straight from his youth.

"I probably had more exposure as a young man to zydeco and French music than to straight-ahead blues -- there's still radio shows down there that are all in French," says Lauro, the group's undisputed leader and cultural attaché. "It's a long tradition of the Acadians, and people down there always associate good music with good food and good times. . .people wouldn't go to bars as much, they'd go from one house to another. Somebody made gumbo, somebody roasted the pig, somebody made crawfish, we would go from house to house to house and have different things."

While Lauro was raised Cajun French, he quickly became a blues devotee as a young man going to New Orleans blues clubs in the early 1970s. Pillars of the blues world such as Professor Longhair, James Booker, and the Nighthawks realigned his musical galaxy, and inspired Lauro to play the blues himself.

"They just completely wowed the crowd and it just freaked me out," says Lauro, who has since moved to Nashville for its geographical advantage to nationally touring musicians. "I said `man, I want to play music and lose a crowd like that.'"

Lauro's group has been around in one form or another for about a decade, but the most recent lineup came together in Nashville in the last few years. Lauro hooked up with his old New Orleans pal George "Harmonica Red" Heard in Nashville, and also met the group's current frontman, singer/guitarist Tim Wagoner. With Mississippi native Calvin Johnson on bass, the ensemble was complete.

Harmonica Red is an old New Orleans bluesman who has toured with Gatemouth, a guy who mixes up Cajun two-steps and blues. That fits in great with the Heavyweights, Lauro says, because Harmonica Red can not only blast a vintage blues riff when the song calls for it, but also can make his harmonica emulate the accordion lines in the upbeat the Cajun/zydeco-style tunes the band plays. Wagoner injects Music City showmanship into the sound, kicking the energy up a notch with his ebullient vocals and dead-on blues solos.

Big Al and the Heavyweights' food-centric tunes caught the ear of Emeril Legasse, the Fall River native who caught the fancy of New Orleans foodies after a stint as chef at Commander's Palace and eventually opened several very successful Big Easy eateries. He invited the band to play on his nationally syndicated show, and it drew 42 million viewers -- and helped sell a lot of CDs for the band.

"It was the seventh most popular show that week on cable TV," Lauro says. "The e- mail orders we get when they repeat the show . . . it's truly amazing. I had no idea his little cooking show was that popular."

Another backer of the band is Dan Aykroyd, who has interviewed Lauro and featured the group twice on his national blues radio show. Right now, the group's current release is last year's Live Crawfish, although the group recently completed recording a new album tentatively titled Late Night Gumbo Party that could be released in time for the group's summer tour of the festival circuit.

Big Al and the Heavyweights play at 10 p.m. on January 19 at Gilrein's, 802 Main Street, Worcester. Tickets are $8. Call (508) 791-2583.