French-Canadian Session

Septuagenarian Louis Léger was born in Moncton, New Brunswick, speaking French in an Acadian family. He spent his wild youth in France playing old-time and jugband fiddling with The Stringband, busking in Germany, France, and Switzerland. He moved to Santa Barbara, California in the 1970s and taught fiddle to a host of young fiddlers at the time, including John Travolta. For 20 years, he taught orchestra and band in public schools in California and Oregon. When his son started playing, the two of them focused on French-Canadian fiddling and began a long search for their Acadian roots in the music. These days he mostly plays button accordion, but he’s been known to play fiddle, banjo, mandolin, guitar, and spoons (of which he was once a world champion, before there were world championships).

Devon Leger is a second generation fiddler who has spent many years studying the wild traditions of Acadian fiddling. He specializes in the Acadian fiddling of New Brunswick, his father’s home province, and in the playing of Acadian fiddlers like André à Toto Savoie, Eloi LeBlanc, and Vilbon le Violoneux. Acadian fiddling is still one of the least known fiddle traditions in North America, and Devon has been rooting out this old, strange, and beautiful style of fiddling for a long time now. He’s learned from archives, field recordings, and has tracked down elder fiddlers across Canada to learn from directly. He’s currently working on tracing the roots of the instrumental tunes from Western France, through the Acadian provinces, and down ultimately to Louisiana’s Cajun communities. He primarily performs in his family band, La Famille Léger with his father, Louis, and his wife, Dejah. He teaches Acadian fiddling, presents a series of videos on YouTube about these traditions, and has led French-Canadian jam sessions for over 20 years in the Pacific Northwest.