Tonight David Egan plays at Parc Sans Souci during this week’s Downtown Alive! The Shreveport native with musical chops in every genre from jazz to blues to R&B, has been serenading Cajun country (and living in Lafayette, which he calls the “center of the universe”) for decades.
Egan has crafted a reputation as one of the country’s most respected contemporary blues songwriters with his gift of putting the listener in the moment. The 20 Years of Trouble band builds its raucous sound around Egan originals and piano-pounding, Louisiana soul classics. His songs have been recorded by the likes of Irma Thomas, Etta James, Marsha Ball, Solomon Burke, Percy Sledge, John Mayall, Mavis Staples, Joe Cocker, the Fabulous Thunderbirds, and Johnny Adams, as well as being included in feature films. He has toured extensively with the regional, now legendary, party band A-Train, the great Jo-El Sonnier, and the local Cajun group Filé. Egan is also a member of the swamp pop super-group Lil’ Band of Gold. His songs have been on multiple Grammy-nominated records and in feature films. He was awarded a Louisiana Division of the Arts Fellowship, the state’s highest juried arts honor.
Along with Egan at DTA! tonight will be the Jeep Jaunt with information about their fundraiser for the American Lung Association of Louisiana. Festival Acadiens et Creoles, coming up on October 10-11, will be selling their commemorative pins.
Downtown Alive! opens at 5:30, music starts at 6 p.m. Rain chances are only 40 percent, so don’t overthink it, head on downtown tonight.