Louisiana’s LeRoux wows VOW

“Nobody Said It Was Easy.” That’s more than a song title off “Last Safe Place,” LeRoux’s fourth album. The Louisiana legends know how hard it is to earn a recording contract, survive a grinding tour schedule year after year and turn out hits.

But the eight-man band has managed to carve out a place in the state’s musical history. Their debut hit, “New Orleans Ladies,” skyrocketed up the charts. Three decades and nine albums later, the band is still going strong, packing in their faithful following eager to hear the classics – “Take A Ride On A Riverboat,” “Addicted,” “Carrie’s Gone,” “Nobody Said It Was Easy” and, of course, “New Orleans Ladies.”

On Oct. 10, during a special performance at this month’s Voice of the Wetlands Festival in Houma, LeRoux will earn its place in the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.

LeRoux is synonymous with Louisiana. Ironically, its incarnation as the Jeff Pollard Band – the lead singer in the late ’70s – happened after a gig at the Improv in Los Angeles, virtually a world away from the group’s Baton Rouge roots.

Immediately after the show, eight record producers handed over their business cards with promises to call.

That was in 1977.

A year later, founding member/bassist Leon Medica was cooking gumbo, when the phone rang. The Capitol Records exec at the other end of the line said there was a conflict with the band’s name. They’d have to make a name change to seal a record deal, he said.

“It all started with a roux,” Medica recalls. “The label president asked me what I was doing because he heard me stirring the pot. I told him I was making a roux and I couldn’t stop because, if I did, it would burn and I’d have to start all over again.

“That’s when he asked me what (roux) was,” he continued. “When I explained it to him, he said, ‘That’s the name of the band.'”

Louisiana’s LeRoux – and an eventual two-album deal – was officially born.

“I wanted to call it ‘LaRoux,’ but they told me if I was going to stick with the French name to use ‘LeRoux,’ because LaRoux was the feminine form of the word,” Medica said. “We ended up sticking with LeRoux and the journey began.”

The original band consisted of Medica, who hails from Alexandria, Lafayette’s Tony Haselden (guitarist) and Pollard, Houma keyboardist Rod Roddy and Baton Rouge’s David Peters (drummer) and Bobby Campo, who plays percussion and horns.

The self-titled inaugural album produced two of LeRoux’s biggest hits: songs about a riverboat ride and southern ladies.

“New Orleans Ladies” virtually wrote itself, Medica recalls. Along with friend Hoyt Garrick, Medica penned it in 15 minutes during a lunch break. It was by sheer chance that the song was included in the play list at Los Angeles’ Improv a year earlier.

French singer Dick Rivers passed on the tune, and it was months before “New Orleans Ladies” resurfaced in LeRoux’s performances.

“The first time we every played it was at the Kingfish (in Baton Rouge),” he said. “We ended up having to play it six times that night. That’s when we knew we had something.”

Medica’s prediction that night couldn’t begin to foretell the song’s impact. In 1999, it was voted the Song of the Century by Gambit Magazine, a New Orleans-based entertainment guide.

“Keep the Fire Burnin’,” the band’s follow-up, continued to gain the group national attention.

By the release of LeRoux’s third album, “Up,” legal issues arose about the use of the Bayou State’s name in their title. In response, Medica said “Louisiana’s” was dropped and the band became simply LeRoux.

Over the coming years, the band would move to RCA. Members would come and go – Pollard and Campo among them.

Terry Brock, who toured in the 1980s with Kansas, now handles vocals. He replaced LeRoux’s second frontman, Fergie Frederiksen, who left the group to become singer of Toto. (Frederiksen is returning to Houma an appearance at the VOW fest.)

Keyboardist Nelson Blanchard and percussionist Mark Duthu have also joined LeRoux’s ranks.

Medica, Roddy, Peters and Haseldon – who resides in Nashville and has penned number-one hits for George Strait, Colin Ray, Shenandoah and Shania Twain – remain the original corps.

“No matter how much we changed, we always made it a point to sound like LeRoux,” Medica said.

Since leaving Capitol Records, seven more albums have followed, including 1983’s “So Fired Up,” which still sits in Germany’s Top 10 Album-Oriented Rock (AOR) releases of all time.

“AOR” would include “Addicted” and LeRoux’s Top 20 hit “Nobody Said It Was Easy,” which also garnered heavy airplay on MTV.

LeRoux gained attention among the MTV crowd again with the release of “Carrie’s Gone” on the band’s fifth album, “Last Safe Place.”

Through the 1990s, the band opened for a number of heavyweights in the music industry: ZZ Top, the Doobie Brothers, Bob Seger, Journey, the Dirt Band, John Prime and Muddy Waters.

In 1996, the returned home. The release of “Bayoudegradable: The Best of Louisiana’s LeRoux” served as a reminder for locals as to what made the Baton Rouge band legendary in southeast Louisiana.

Today, they share their Classic Rock tunes at a number of festivals – the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, French Quarter Fest and the Shrimp & Petroleum Festival among them.

In recent years, LeRoux has joined Houma bluesman Tab Benoit in the studio. Benoit and LeRoux earned a Grammy nod in 2007 for collaborating on his “Brother to the Blues” CD. The release was nominated for Best Traditional Blues Album.

LeRoux can also be heard on Benoit’s subsequent releases, “Power of the Pontchartrain” and “Night Train to Nashville,” a live CD that was listed on the Billboard Blues Album Chart.

This month’s induction into the state’s Music Hall of Fame is one more highlight in a 31-year career that, Medica admits, “nobody said would be easy.”

It has, however, been a humbling ride.

“When I saw the artists who were already inducted in the (Louisiana Music) Hall of Fame, my jaw dropped,” he said. “To be classified in the same category as some of these great artists is truly amazing. We are very grateful to have our names among some of the best.

“Most of the guys in there were my favorite artists,” Medica added. “It’s very humbling.”

Joining their blues brother Benoit onstage in his hometown – and for a cause as vital as saving Louisiana’s wetlands – is also a career highlight.

LeRoux returns to the VOW Fest for the third time – 2006, 2008 and this year.

“We love being in the area, but it really all started when we agreed to work on the albums with Tab,” Medica said of the VOW gig. “His manager (Reuben Williams) called and asked us if we wanted to play the festival again. Of course, we said ‘yes.'”

Louisiana’s LeRoux wows VOW