Michael Doucet founded America’s premier Cajun band, BeauSoleil, in 1975, and has led it through the recording of fifteen releases, two Grammy Awards and seven nominations, and an international touring career. They have appeared at New York’s Town Hall and Carnegie Hall, Royce Hall at UCLA and are regulars at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Doucet has become one of the leading forces in the preservation and growth of Cajun music from the French-rooted culture of Southwest Louisiana.
In addition to appearances as headliners at concert halls, clubs and festivals, they have opened concerts for the Grateful Dead and appear regularly on Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion radio program. They also backed Mary Chapin Carpenter in the nationally televised 1997 Super Bowl half-time concert and get a mention on her Grammy-winning "Down at the Twist and Shout." They played under the opening se-quences of the movie The Big Easy. Doucet’s fiddle has been featured on album sessions with Jo-El Sonnier, Keith Richards, Darol Anger, and Thomas Dolby, among others.
Doucet’s first instrument was banjo, then guitar. In high school, he played in garage-rock bands with his cousin, Zachary Richard, and with Tommy Alesi, who would later become BeauSoleil’s drummer. Before he went away to college in Baton Rouge, Doucet inherited his uncle’s fiddle. His commitment to the Cajun tradition was reinforced by a trip to France in the early ’70’s, where he was amazed to meet folk musicians who knew and respected Cajun music. He recognized some of the same French melodies dating back to Medieval times.
Upon his return to Louisiana, Doucet sought out the old masters and studied with them. Among the most influential were Dennis McGee, a fiddler who died in 1990 at the age of 94, and the Balfa Brothers: Will, Rodney and Dewey. Another key influence was Canray Fontenot, who provided a living link between black and white styles of French Louisiana music. For a time, Doucet fronted two bands, the more traditional BeauSoleil and thex experimental Coteau. He has taught Cajun fiddling extensively all over the world, and at Mark O’Connor’s Fiddle Camp. He has made several solo recordings for the Arhoolie label, and continues to record and pursue his own projects.