Abita Springs Opry Media - 2006-10 Featuring the Abita Strings, Betsy McGovern, Russ Russell, Harold Cavallero, and Cedric Watson

MEDIA - AO2006-10

The Abita Springs Opry is a series of music concerts held six times a year and is produced by a nonprofit organization, Abita Opry Inc. The show has the mission of preserving and presenting Louisiana "Roots" music. Our music is played primarily acoustically, in its original form.

Our main thrust is old-time Country, Bluegrass, and traditional Southern Gospel music, but we often present other forms of traditional Louisiana music such as Cajun, Zydeco, Irish, or other types that reflect the many different groups of people who are part of our diverse culture.

Abita Strings

This home town bluegrass ensemble is one of the Opry's "House Band". Setting the pace for every show, the Abita Strings have taken Traditional to another level.

Betsy McGovern

Betsy McGovern is a Washington native who is now spreading the Celtic gospel in Louisiana and her voice can chill as easily as it caresses. Therefore she handles up-tempo songs with relish. The slower songs she invests with a quiet authority, and they in turn become things of shimmering beauty. A wondrous voice of pure and untarnished beauty, she is capable of moving mountains with a voice like this."Her voice has also earned praise from around the world. A couple of years ago, Paul McCartney was strolling by OFlaherty's Pub in New Orleans and heard Betsy singing and came in and listened to her entire set, purchasing a CD on his way out. He told Betsy she was a "breath of fresh air"!

Russ Russell

Harold Cavallero and Dinosaur Dobro

Dobro player and steel guitarist Harold Cavallero became a professional musician when he was 13 years old, just two years after he first picked up a Dobro. By the time he was 14, Cavallero was playing gigs in New Orleans on Bourbon Street. He played in the Crescent City with a group known as the Evening Star String Band, specializing in the sound of country music as it was played during the '40s and '50s.

Cedric Watson and the Creole Minstrels

One of the most noted young talents to emerge in Cajun or Creole music in the past few years, Cedric Watson is a fiddler, vocalist, accordionist and songwriter of seemingly unlimited potential. Born in 1983, Cedric grew up in San Felipe, Texas surrounded by the sounds of blues, old soul, country and zydeco. Unlike his hip-hop focused peers, Cedric was drawn to the old-style French songs of Southwest Louisiana and the greater Houston area. He soon made his way to Lafayette, LA where he was enthusiastically accepted into the musical community and immediately recognized as an important participant in the continuity of Creole music.