Michael Doucet

Career

Doucet was born in Scott, Louisiana. He learned banjo at age six, guitar at eight, and belonged to a Cajun rock band with his cousin, Zachary Richard, at twelve. In his early 20s, Doucet and his cousin went to France, and when he got home he added violin to his music studies. Violin became his primary instrument, though he also plays accordion and mandolin.

In 1975, he started the Cajun band Coteau, and two years later he started BeauSoleil with Kenneth Richard and Sterling Richard. Beausoleil plays an eclectic combination of traditional Cajun music, blues, country, jazz, and zydeco. Doucet has been a member of a more traditional Cajun band, the Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band with Ann Savoy and Marc Savoy, and Fiddlers 4 with Darol Anger, Rushad Eggleston, and Bruce Molsky. He began teaching in 1977 at the University of Southwestern Louisiana.

Awards and honors

In 1975, Doucet received an NEA Folk Arts Apprenticeship Grant to study Cajun fiddle styles from masters such as Varise Conner, Hector Duhon, Canray Fontenot, Lionel LeLeux, and Dennis McGee.

In 2005, he was given a National Heritage Fellowship by the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA).

Two years later, he was named a USA Collins Family Foundation Fellow and awarded a $50,000 grant by United States Artists, a public charity that supports and promotes the work of American artists.

Discography