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Photo by Jody Naquin
Always with an eye on the future, Louisiana's LeRoux
received a Grammy nomination in January, 2007, for its work on Tab
Benoit's Brother to the Blues album. Tab's follow-up album,
Power of the Pontchartrain, also with members of LeRoux,
has been in the top 5 on Billboard's Blues chart for over 15 weeks.
Recent events include recording a live double album and DVD in Nashville
with Tab Benoit, Jimmy Hall, Kim Wilson, and others, to be released
in 2008. Members of LeRoux continue to headline concerts and are
on tour with Tab Benoit throughout the US, Canada, and the Caribbean.
Their 1978 Capitol press release read: "LeRoux takes
its name from the Cajun French term for the thick and hearty gravy
base that's used to make a gumbo."
Louisiana's LeRoux (the first album) was
a musical gumbo that blended various instruments and arrangements
for some spicy, mouth-watering pop-rock. Using blues, R&B, funk,
jazz, rock, and Cajun as their base, their Southern anthem "New
Orleans Ladies," voted Song of the Century by Gambit Magazine, simmered
with the laid-back feel of the "Big Easy," evoking images of Bourbon
Street and the bayou. That song, together with their smash hit "Nobody
Said It Was Easy," brings LeRoux daily airplay from Washington,
DC to Baton Rouge, and they remain cult heroes to this day.
The act began to gel in 1975 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana,
as The Jeff Pollard Band. They came into their own in 1977, touring
the United States and Africa with Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown through
an arrangement with the US State Department. The group's big break
came when Leon Medica, the band's producer and one of its founders,
presented a demo tape to Paul Tannen at Screen Gems-EMI while doing
a session in Nashville and making trips to Colorado to contribute
bass parts to a Dirt Band Album at William McEuen's Aspen Recording
Society Studios.
McEuen, Tanney, and Attorney John Frankenheimer
helped Medica secure a recording contract for the band with Capitol
Records. Renamed "Louisiana's LeRoux," they recorded two albums,
both produced by Medica, of Louisiana-flavored pop-rock (their eponymous
debut and Keep The Fire Burning), and a third, Up,
which saw them shift styles to accommodate Jai Winding's more mainstream
production.
In 1981, LeRoux moved to the RCA label, which decided
to break the band as a singles act. They succeeded with the Top
20 hit "Nobody Said It Was Easy" and received heavy MTV airplay
with the Top 5 AOR hit "Addicted," both featured on their Medica-produced
fourth album, Last Safe Place.
Soon afterward, however, lead singer Jeff Pollard
left the group to start a Christian ministry, and was replaced by
Dennis "Fergie" Frederiksen. When percussionist Bobby Campo also
exited, Berkley School of Music Graduate Jim Odom came aboard for
the group's fifth album, So Fired Up, which included their
chart single and MTV hit, "Carrie's Gone" (written about Carol Burnett's
daughter, who was dating Fergie at the time).
LeRoux toured for eight years, headlining and supporting
numerous groups including ZZ Top, Kansas, The Doobie Brothers, Bob
Seger, Journey, The Dirt Band, John Prime, and Muddy Waters. LeRoux's
many television appearances included Don Kirshner's Rock Concert,
Solid Gold, Midnight Special, MTV, and their own Public Broadcasting
live video, Rocking the Nottaway, filmed in 1997.
In 1983, Randy Knaps replaced Fergie, and Medica,
along with members of Kansas, The Doobie Brothers, Pablo Cruise,
Steven Stills, Santana, and Cheap Trick, performed for the USO on
four overseas tours. Haselden and Knaps also accompanied them on
the Around The World tour.
Bassist, producer, and songwriter Leon Medica recently
co-produced Anders Osborn and Wayne Toups, and produced Brian McComas
for Disney's Nashville-based label. He has recorded with many acts
and for numerous soundtracks, and he produced Tom Johnston of The
Doobie Brothers on one of the biggest-selling soundtracks of all
time, Dirty Dancing.
Tony Haselden, guitarist and vocalist who wrote
some of LeRoux's all-time favorites, relocated to Nashville, Tennessee
several years ago and is one of the top songwriters/producers in
Country music. Tony wrote many #1 Country hits, including "That's
My Story" by Colin Ray, "It Ain't Nothin'" by Keith Whitley, and
"You Know Me Better Than That" by George Strait; and he also produced
The Kinleys and The Wilkinsons.
In 1996, the band's Bayoudegradable: The Best
of Louisiana's LeRoux CD Release Party at the House of Blues
in New Orleans created a renewed demand for the band to perform
live. After the success of the disc, Medica, Haselden, Odom, Roddy,
Peters, and Knaps—along with new members Nelson Blanchard and
Mark Duthu—began to perform selected live dates, reviving some
funky musical spirits from the bayou.
Today LeRoux continues to perform and share the
stage with some of the biggest names in Classic Rock, playing primarily
in the southeastern states where LeRoux continues to have a strong
fan base spanning two generations. Some of the festivals where LeRoux
has recently performed are the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival,
the Worldwide NYE 2005 telecast from the New Orleans French Quarter,
Birmingham's City Stages, Mobile Bayfest, Shreveport's Red River
Revel and Mud Bug Madness, Natchitoches Jazz and R&B Festival, and
Lafayette's Mardi Gras & the Cajun Heartland at Cajun Field. Other
festivals include the International Rice Festival, Contraband Days,
Cotton Festival, Strawberry Festival, the Shrimp & Petroleum Festival,
and most major festivals throughout the southeast.