And it's another way for Balfa to deepen her already deep roots in Louisiana soil. It would deplete my soul if I never played for people here. Balfa acquired that soul through her late father, the legendary Cajun fiddler Dewey Balfa. Lead fiddler Kevin Wimmer was a classically trained violinist when he developed his Cajun style in the mid-1980s by signing up for a music camp in Augusta Heritage Center in West Virginia, to study with Dewey Balfa. It's another Balfa Toujours hallmark that Wimmer and Powell are regarded as two of the brightest lights in Cajun music, although neither is a born Cajun.
Cultures thrive on such paradoxes.
The band is also known for making clear its love and respect for the Creole music tradition. But this hasn't come without a price. When Delafose first sat in with Balfa Toujours at Whiskey River, he was the first black Creole musician to play the Atchafalaya Basin club. But she knows that not everyone agrees. The band addressed the subject in letters to local newspapers, and Powell has written about the topic in an article scheduled to be published in an upcoming issue of the Oxford American magazine.