Biography
Kermit Venable, an accordionist and vocalist, fronts the four-piece Beau Bassin Cajun Band, a New Orleans ensemble that has long remained one of the city’s most closely guarded musical treasures. Born January 3, 1944, in Lafayette, Louisiana, Venable has seldom performed beyond state lines except for a single 1981 European and Japanese tour with the cast of Labor of Love, a Japanese-American stage production centered on rice cultivation. For six consecutive years he and the Beau Bassin Cajun Band have drawn loyal audiences to four weekly engagements at Michauls restaurant in New Orleans; locals have long referred to him affectionately as “the Cajun ambassador” while he guides the group through more than five hundred Cajun French numbers drawn from his extensive repertoire.
The child of an amateur harmonica player and vocalist, Venable has sung for as long as he can recall. Over many years he presented a Cajun music program on KSLO in Opelousas and worked as news director for KRVS at the University of Southwest Louisiana in Lafayette. After a brief absence from broadcasting he returned in the mid-1980s to host a morning Cajun music show on KSIG in Crowley and later served KSIG again as news director. He also brought his musical interests to television by hosting a weekly French-language variety program on Lafayette’s community-access channel; between 1985 and 1989 the same station carried the only French-language newscast in the city, which Venable likewise hosted.
Following the release of two cassettes—The Cajun Music Album in 1986 and With Gurviras Matte and the Branch Playboys in 1992—Venable relocated to New Orleans in 1993. In 1996 he and the Beau Bassin Cajun Band issued the album Traditional Cajun. He has also appeared in two Canadian-produced French-language films, portraying a sheriff in the 1986 wolfman update Le Chien De Lune and participating in the 1989 musical documentary Le Blanc Family Reunion.
The child of an amateur harmonica player and vocalist, Venable has sung for as long as he can recall. Over many years he presented a Cajun music program on KSLO in Opelousas and worked as news director for KRVS at the University of Southwest Louisiana in Lafayette. After a brief absence from broadcasting he returned in the mid-1980s to host a morning Cajun music show on KSIG in Crowley and later served KSIG again as news director. He also brought his musical interests to television by hosting a weekly French-language variety program on Lafayette’s community-access channel; between 1985 and 1989 the same station carried the only French-language newscast in the city, which Venable likewise hosted.
Following the release of two cassettes—The Cajun Music Album in 1986 and With Gurviras Matte and the Branch Playboys in 1992—Venable relocated to New Orleans in 1993. In 1996 he and the Beau Bassin Cajun Band issued the album Traditional Cajun. He has also appeared in two Canadian-produced French-language films, portraying a sheriff in the 1986 wolfman update Le Chien De Lune and participating in the 1989 musical documentary Le Blanc Family Reunion.
Albums