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Digney Fignus - Trouble on the Levee Recorded and mixed by Andre Kolarevic at Boston Audio Group and John Bono at Newbury Sound Mastered by Toby Mountain at Northeastern Digital Recording, Inc.

Like any good entertainer, Digney Fignus knows to lead with sex and murder and does so with first track "Boudreaux," a story-song that leaves the listener following along with the narrative of the lyrics just as closely as with the thunk-bump one-two swing and strum of the backing music. Digney Fignus cavorts and romps his way through the 12 tracks on Trouble on the Levee. He's aided and abetted by 14 friends on mandolins, trombones, accordions, and all other manners of instruments that are plucked, squeezed, or tapped. His strong bayou accent comes off as a mix between a Cajun Johnny Cash and an adult Disney character that Brer Rabbit might have hung out with off the set. The songs and sounds on Trouble are so infectious that the band quickly grows to include the listener. The strong folk grooves on this record make it easy to be swept up in the sepia-toned river along with the other travelers on board for this trip. Fignus himself sits up front at the helm, holding the wheel and tipping his hat to the trawlers dangling rods off the starboard bow.  Digney Fignus is perhaps not suitable music for your high-pressure evening commute, but it does serve as a window into a hazy, warm-colored world of swamps, storytellers, and shufflin' swang, as Farmer Fran might say. (Figtone Music) C. D. DiGuardia  METRONOME MAGAZINE Doug’s Top 5 for April 2006 DIGNEY FIGNUS TROUBLE ON THE LEVEE 12-SONG CD Well known for his MTV video hit “Girl With The Curious Hand” and song of the same name, Digney Fignus returns with yet another refreshingly different chapter to his musical career with his latest album Trouble on The Levee. Fignus states that this “Cajun Opera” composed about a man named Johnnie Boudreaux, was borne in the summer of 2004 after meeting drummer Dave Mattacks. By the following May the recording was complete. The story is about a fellow “too good looking for his own good” and the adventures he encounters on the road of life. Of course the music is sterling as Fignus’ studio band featuring Chris Leadbetter on mandolin, slide guitar, rhythm guitar and vocals, Dave Mattacks on drums, Wolf Ginandes on bass, Tom West on piano, Ian Kennedy on violin and Russell Jewell on trombone along with Katrin Roush & Gayla Morgan on backing vocals, Doug Dube on accordion & B3, Greg Tower on lead guitar, Jeff Casper on drums, Russell Keys & Brandon Pritchard on bass, and Bruce Katz on piano, develop an authentic Louisiana-bayou feel and groove for Fignus’ stellar vocal offerings. With a well written and recorded offering like Trouble On The Levee, Digney Fignus will have no problem eclipsing the accolades he gained with "The Girl With The Curious Hand," and should be a prime candidate for a Boston Music Award nomination.  Outstanding. - Douglas Sloan

The full length CD Trouble On the Levee tells the story of Johnnie Boudreaux.  A man too good lookin’ for his own good.  The story begins in 1925.

The Almighty likes things balanced, and such was the case with Johnnie, who in spite of his good looks, had about as much common sense as a fence post.

Of course, Johnnie could have had any woman he wanted, but his big head didn‘t do too much thinkin’.  Things go bad when he decides it’s a good idea to bed down sweet Yvonne, wife of one of the local nut jobs, “Crazy” Pierre Thibodaux.

The story opens with Crazy Pierre heading out to see the Big Mamba, (“Boudreaux").  He suspects his wife has been sneakin’ over to Boudreaux’s for a little late night entertainment.  The Big Mamba is a local Voodoo Queen.  After a bit of conjuring, she confirms Pierre’s suspicions and makes him a “catch ‘em” charm to sew onto his wife Yvonne’s skirt.  The charm will mark any man “who dare lift the skirt of your sweet Yvonne”. 

In those parts, the Thibodaux’s had always had a reputation of being a little crazy.  Crazy Pierre, “Le Fou” Pierre was a lot crazy.  When he discovered the thread on the charm had been broken, he hooked up his hound dog, grabbed his whiskey jar, and loaded his pistol.  Of course, the trail led Pierre directly to Boudreaux, whose hand had been marked by the Mamba’s charm when he had lifted Yvonne’s skirt, with “dat spot dat never wash off.”  That’s when the shootin’ started.

Barely escaping, Boudreaux goes on the run from the crazy man who has vowed to track him down and shoot him dead.  Tired of hiding out, Johnnie turns to his old friend Madame Louise, (“Big Mama”), the owner of the local gentleman’s establishment. 

With Big Mama you always got to pay.  So after she has her way with him, she decides what it’s gonna cost Johnnie to make him disappear. 

Madame Louise knows a first class grifter named Jennie Beaucoup – a name befitting her ample endowments.  Jennie’s last partner happened to end up shot and tossed in the river, (in fact, her last six partners had ended up shot …), so she was in immediate need of a new man to help her run her grift.  Big Mama was an excellent madam but a lousy gambler, so she was into Jennie for a nice little stack of Jacksons.

Every grifter needs someone to divert the mark’s attention, and when Big Mama suggested renting out her, “good lookin’, not too smart, hunk of man”, it sounded good enough for Jennie to forgive the Madam’s sizeable debt.  As for Johnnie … he got to stay disappeared, as long as Big Mama kept getting her 50% of whatever he was making with Jennie. 

After a few lessons on how to work the loaded dice and marked cards they would be using on a regular basis, Jennie and Boudreaux board the riverboat and head down the river, scheming to cheat as many rubes as they could along the way, (“Griftin‘ River Blues“).  Everything is going good and everybody is making piles of cash, until Johnnie gets tired of Jennie’s scams and drunken behavior, (“Don’t Wanna Be Your Fool”), and decides to leave the boat down in New Orleans with his new friend, the riverboat’s cook, “Snake Eye” Pete. 

Snake Eye got his name because one of his eyes moved independent of the other, so sometimes it appears like he’s looking both ways at the same time.  It made him nearly impossible to cheat.  One of the reasons Jennie hated him so much.  When he was born his Mama noticed the unnerving defect and so named him Bacchus, in honor of the God who could see both ways, hoping this might bring him luck.  Of course, “my Mama call me Bacchus, my friend’ call me Snake Eye, but you, you can call me Pete …”, (his middle name), figured that this moniker gave him holy license to suck down as much wine as possible as often as possible.

Snake Eye grew up in New Orleans, so after they jump ship, Pete introduces Boudreaux to one of his local heroes, the Gumbo King, (“Gumbo").  Part cook, part conjurer, the Gumbo King can make the gumbo for “any kind o’ tang”.

While in New Orleans, Johnnie for the first time in his life meets a woman who doesn’t immediately fall at his feet.  This drives him a little mad, and so he goes to the Gumbo King to see if he can get himself a Love Gumbo.  “Can be done … start wit’ dat “Spring Gumbo”, make people spring together o’ sping apart, dependin’ on dat spice y’ add …”.  The Gumbo King obliges Boudreaux with the one admonishment, “be careful what you wish fo‘ Johnnie Boudreaux …”

The woman Johnnie wants is none other than Sally Roullette, daughter of one of the local ner-do-wells, “Papa” Roullette, “Big Boss” of New Orleans.  Boudreaux manages to get Sally to agree to have dinner with him at the restaurant Snake Eye is now working at.  Once there, Pete serves them up the special “Spring” Gumbo. 

The potion is strong and works on Johnnie just as much as on Sally.  They of course fall madly in love, (“Fallin’ for You”).  Papa Roullette is skeptical of his daughters new beau, but when Johnnie proposes to Sally, he decides to accept him into the “family”.  For the first time, Boudreaux realizes who Papa Roullette really is - a man with the power to put him six feet under quicker than a crawfish turns red when it hits the pot.  As a symbol of his acceptance, Papa Roullette gives Johnnie a ring with the Roulette family crest, and a warning never to break his daughters heart.  A huge church wedding is planned, to be preceded by a big bachelor party up on the levee side of Papa Roullette’s estate just outside the city. 

Before the party Johnnie gets a premonition about some of the things that are going to happen in the future and the choices that he is going to have to make, (“Both Ways”).  He realizes there is only one path that he is going to be able to take that will get him through the upcoming travails alive.  Even then he might end up dead.

The premonition begins to come true while they are in the middle of their big celebration, (“Trouble on the Levee”).  Sally’s little sister gets into the Love Gumbo and ends up falling in love with Johnnie too.  Johnnie’s got to choose.  Naturally, he chooses badly.  Fearing a quick trip to the swamp care of Papa Roullette, Johnnie decides to go through with the wedding AND keep the younger sister as a lover.  Johnnie figures he can have both things both ways.  But when he ends up running off with little sister right after the wedding, (“Gone Little Sister"), it‘s too much for Sally.  It doesn’t sit too well with Papa either, especially when after a little investigation, he finds out that Boudreaux and Snake Eye have been using voodoo and potions on his daughters.  Worse off, Sally’s little sister, coming to her senses a little late, shows up pregnant with what everyone suspects to be Johnnie‘s baby. 

Johnnie and Snake Eye are on the run again.  They are eventually tracked down not only by Papa’s “boys”, but by Crazy Pierre, who found out all about Boudreaux from Big Mama once Johnnie’s paychecks stopped coming.  The rain is coming down thick as grits as the confrontation begins at a local roadhouse. Johnnie and Pete barely escape their showdown with the assassins, (“Rednecks and Whiskey") when, thanks to Mother Nature, and a few well placed sticks of dynamite, the levee breaks and washes right over the juke joint, taking everybody and everything with it. 

They come to in a graveyard.  Temporarily spared, Johnnie and Pete realize that if they are going to stay alive, they got to “get dead”.  They make up a plan to fake their own deaths.  Their timing is perfect, thanks to the big flood that has hit the area and washed a lot of folks right down the river.  Exchanging clothes with a couple of the right sized suitably mangled corpses … add Papa Roullette’s ring, a watch, some papers, a photo … “voila!”  “We sure nuf looks dead …”

The bodies are found and identified as Johnnie and Pete.  Now that everyone believes Boudreaux and Snake Eye are dead, a big funeral is planned and all of Johnnie’s old flames wax nostalgic about what a great lover he was, (“Love You True”).  Johnnie and Pete, (like Huck and Tom), watch the procedure with much amusement as they are praised by some of the very people that had just recently tried to kill them.

Before their final escape, Papa Roullette, now the new Gram Papa Roullette, discovers the rouse, and not really wanting to kill his grandson’s daddy, ties up Johnnie and Pete, and throws them in the hold of a steamer headed for Mexico, explaining that if they don’t “want to be dead” they “better stay dead”.  The story ends with Johnnie and Pete tossed ashore on a remote beach in Mexico, (“Let the Wheels Just Roll”), broke and battered, they start across the sand, glad to be alive …

Best Wishes, Digney Fignus 

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