All-star tribute to David Egan comes to Margaritaville

As the anniversary of the passing of renowned Grammy-winning songwriter/musician David Egan approaches, an unprecedented star-studded line-up of musicians is coming together to celebrate his life and work in “Sing It! The David Egan Songbook.” Tickets are now on sale for the mini-tour, which opens in Lafayette with two performances on March 23 and 24, then heads to Tipitina’s in New Orleans on March 25 before heading to Bossier City for a show at Paradise Theater at Margaritaville Resort Casino on Sunday, March 26, at 7 p.m. Proceeds from the shows will benefit The David Egan Dreamer Fund at The Community Foundation of Acadiana, which is dedicated to perpetuating Egan’s focus on creativity.

Some of the legendary performers appearing at Margaritaville will include Marcia Ball, C.C. Adcock, Roddie Romero, Kristin Diable, Buddy Flett, Kevin Gordon, Steve Riley and Michael Juan Nunez, all of which have recorded Egan’s songs and performed with him on stage. A number of additional special guests will be joining the show each night to share songs and stories.

Of course, also appearing will be former members of the band A-Train, including guitarist and former Egan songwriting partner Buddy Flett, Bruce Flett (bass), John Howe (saxophone) and Miki Honeycutt (vocals). The Yat (Mike Sipos) will be joining them on drums, and David Torkanowsky (of 20 Years of Trouble and Irma Thomas fame) will be playing piano. The ensemble will be joining Marcia Ball onstage to perform Egan’s song “Sing It,” first released in 1984 on A-Train’s “Live at Humpfrees” album, and the title song of the Grammy-nominated album by Irma Thomas, Marcia Ball and Tracy Nelson released in 2001. (Egan’s songs have also been recorded by the likes of Joe Cocker, Solomon Burke, John Mayall and Percy Sledge.)

Everybody loved Egan. It’s true. The musicians who performed and wrote with David continue to remember him with love and laughter. Former A-Train band member John Howe said, “He was real easy to love, especially if you played with him.”

Then Howe laughed and said, “David had a big head, and I mean, his head was really big! But if he could see the line-up of the musicians that are playing an evening of his music, it might even get bigger.”

“He’s just about my favorite songwriter I’ve ever worked with,” Howe said. “I played his song ‘Baby Please’ every night for 10 years, and I never once got tired of it. It always felt so good to sing and play it. He was just a terrific writer and the nicest guy you’d ever want to meet.

Howe said Egan helped A-Train even before he joined the band. “David came and helped us rehearse and taught us a couple of songs that he had written that were really kind of above our heads,” he said. “He was pretty instrumental in a way of putting us in the mindset of what we ended up doing. When David came and joined us, he brought so much more. He just had the best stories.”

Former A-Train member and legendary guitarist Buddy Flett laughed at the mention of Egan and his “stories,” and proclaimed, “There’s one thing you need to know about David Egan: Everybody knew the boy liked to eat!” “He’s a great songwriter, and we just had so much fun drinking coffee and writing songs together,” Flett said. “But if the band was playing a gig and there was a buffet, we knew not to ever get in front of him. He would move you out of the way. You know, don’t you, that his daddy in heaven picked him up at the train station in a Cadillac and took him right to a diner to get chicken fried steak and red beans and rice and pie with a lot of coffee? The boy could eat.”

Flett said he would be performing songs at “Sing It!” that he and Egan wrote together. “I’ll be doing ‘First You Cry,’ ‘Good to You Baby’ and ‘Half Past the Blues.’ Egan and I wrote those. Well, he wrote most of ‘Half Past the Blues.’ I was driving the car. Together we were just good.”

One of the mini-tour producers is Todd Mouton. “David was simply one of the most thoughtful artists I ever came across,” he said. “His songs are a celebration of life and soul, and they live in all of us, especially the stellar group of artists who are coming together to ‘play’ tribute to the man and his work. He left behind an incredible soundtrack we get to carry with us into the future.”

“This mini-tour really marks the beginning of the David Egan Dreamer Fund,” added Mouton, “and we’ll be making an initial grant from the fund at the show. Like its namesake, the possibilities of the fund are limitless.”

“I think the thing that strikes me the most about these shows is that nothing like this has ever really happened,” Mouton said. “A diverse group of artists are paying tribute to one very special artist and their friendships, and celebrating the interconnected web of creativity in Louisiana and far beyond.”

Special guests confirmed for the other shows include Sonny Landreth (Lafayette), Irma Thomas (New Orleans), Papa Mali (New Orleans) Several more special guests will be announced.

“This is going to be a great song fest, playing all of Egan’s songs,” said Buddy Flett. “This is as good a show as Louisiana can put out.”

– Susan Reeks

MORE INFORMATION:

Tickets for all four evenings of music are available at www.DavidEganSongs. com. Visit the “Sing It: David Egan Songbook” facebook page at www.facebook.com/ events/989589194475372.