A southern band who’s performed at the Bayou Arts Fest and other local festivals in Houma and Thibodaux is dropping a new album in late September.
The Tyron Benoit Band, who is performing at Luminate Houma this weekend, September 13, and the Bayou Regional Arts Festival in October, will release a new album titled “Mid City,” September 26 which includes 10 tracks. Leading up to the release, the band has already revealed two singles to drum up anticipation: “Louisiana Time,” and “Raining in Kentucky.” A third single “Spent,” will drop with the final album.
“We getting casse’d with the coullions / From Barre to Fourchon / Where the water gets high / And so do I, you know / We doing just fine,” Benoit sings in the track titled “Louisiana Time.”
Born and raised in Little Calliou, Benoit left to serve in Desert Storm before travelling the world. Now 55, he has been busy the past two years. His band mates also hail from nearby, with Doug Belote from Lafayette and Shane Theriot from Raceland.
The band’s music is a blend of folk, zydeco, country and southern rock. Benoit was asked what got him into music. He said it wasn’t really a choice — it is a calling.
“I think it calls you,” Benoit said. “It’s something you think you can walk away from and it comes back and it pulls at you.”
He said his favored instrument wouldn’t be a first choice for most musicians.
“I didn’t choose accordion, it chose me,” he said. “Who would want to choose a freakin’ circus instrument that makes you look like a goofball, right?”
He began in his 20s in Denver with his younger brother, Tate Benoit, in places like Herman’s Hideaway. He went into the Marines to serve his country, traveled to New York, and then returned to Kenner, where he stepped away from music professionally for about a decade to care for ailing family members.
In the past two years, the siren call of the stage has brought him back.
“I was probably away from professional music for the better part of a decade,” he said, discussing caring for his family. “As those things cleared up, it’s been literally like a whirlwind ever since. It’s been full force. We played 16 major festivals in 2024, finished all the way in Lausanne, Switzerland.”
Some of that time was dedicated to the recording studio, and Benoit’s enthusiasm for the album could be felt even over the phone. It is a collaboration with the New Orleans producer Donald Markowitz, who co-wrote “Time of my Life,” the Academy Award-winning song best known from the movie “Dirty Dancing.”
According to Benoit, the studio is almost another member of the music-making process, adding its own feel to the final product. The collaborative environment allows the artists to bounce ideas one another. It was in this environment that Benoit said Markowitz made a remark that stuck with Benoit throughout the album.
“‘OK, you’re about to have the opportunity to speak to the world: make sure you know what you want to say to them,’” Benoit recalled Markowitz saying. “I started thinking, ‘When I’m gone, or if I’m gone whatever the case is, is this still going to say something?’”
Benoit reflected on those words, and he said it sets this album apart. According to Benoit, his music explores love in all its forms. To him, it’s what makes us human.
“It’s an infinite reflection of humanity, and each of us,” he said.
He said perhaps it was the life experiences during his music hiatus, or maybe it was Markowitz’s words, but this album is of particular importance to him because he wanted the music to be a time capsule.
“This time around it was about contributing, about giving something back, about putting something out there that might help somebody somewhere down the line,” he said.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.houmatoday.com ’
