Louisiana singer/songwriter Marc Broussard looks back at 2004 as a great time for music.
At the time, he was signed to Island Def Jam records, which released his major-label debut, “Carencro,” that year, and he opened for Maroon 5 and the Dave Matthews Band.
Now 20 years later, the Bayou soul singer is in the midst of a 20th anniversary tour celebrating that album. The tour stops here on March 13 at Thunderbird Music Hall in Pittsburgh’s Lawrenceville neighborhood, with Joe Hertler & the Rainbow Seekers opening.
“It was just kind of a coming of age for a lot of us, for myself and my fans included, and those fans have been with me this entire time,” Broussard said Friday in a phone call from Richmond, Virginia. “So it’s a bit of nostalgia, I think, that gets people out to the shows. But those songs are good, they’re catchy tunes. There’s some songs that I think lots of people have danced to at their wedding as a first dance, songs like ‘The Beauty of Who You Are.’ I think there’s just nostalgia on tap at this show.”
Two songs from that album — “Home” and “Where You Are” — received plenty of radio and TV airplay at the time. Looking back on the album, Broussard said it can feel “a little schizophrenic at times.”
“They say you got your whole life to write your first record and I kind of tend to agree with that. Songs like ‘The Wanderer,’ I think I wrote it when I was 17,” he said. “There’s definitely something to being young and not really having much intention behind what I was trying to do. I was just trying to write good songs. It wasn’t like I was trying in any particular way to do something specific. I just wanted good songs. So the album sort of feels a little disjointed at times. There’s a song called “Saturday” that sits out like an ugly duck on that record. But it’s a song that I absolutely adore. I love that song.”
After “Carencro,” Broussard made his second album, which Island Def Jam didn’t want to release, so he asked to be let out of his contract.
“They obliged but wouldn’t let me take this album that I had just recorded and wouldn’t let me re-record it,” he said. “And again because the writing was still in the earliest phase, I just didn’t have a big batch of extra tunes that I could go back into the studio with. I didn’t have time to go back into the writing process either and so the solution was to put out a record of covers.”
That album, “S.O.S.: Save Our Soul,” a collection of soul covers, has spawned three more in the series, all with a charitable mission. He created the SOS Foundation, with a portion of proceeds earmarked for groups like City of Refuge in Atlanta and Guitars Over Guns.
“So that first project was really a charity project for yours truly,” Broussard said. “But once I went independent, I got off the labels, it was the calculus behind the records while I was on major labels that led me to start the foundation. Because I had never seen record revenue while I was on labels, I never leaned on those dollars to feed my family. Well, that revenue starts coming my way when I go independent, but because it was never part of my budgeting for my family’s needs, we figured that money that used to keep the lights on in office buildings in New York and L.A. was better spent keeping the lights on for people that actually needed to keep their lights on.”
Broussard looks at the albums in the series as perpetual revenue generators for the charities with which he’s partnered. The latest, “S.O.S. 4: Blues for Your Soul,” came out last March.
“So it’s really a beautiful little process that I really didn’t have a clue as to how exactly it was going to work. I just knew that it would,” he said. “My managers were like, ‘Dude, you’re broke. You don’t have money to be giving away to charity.’ I was like, just trust me. This is going to work. I promise it’s going to work. Now my managers don’t question me when I have crazy ideas anymore.”
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Broussard has seen firsthand the damage done by Hurricane Katrina in his home state in 2005 — he released an EP, “Bootleg to Benefit the Victims of Hurricane Katrina” later that year — so he knows the importance of lending a helping hand.
“More than ever now, man. We’ve got some serious issues facing the state of Louisiana and serious issues facing this country, I think, that are not easily addressed and are not easily addressed through just policy,” he said. “I think culture is a big part of it, and I like being on the cultural side of things as opposed to the policy side of things. I think that we can do a whole lot more on the ground when we’re in the cultural driver’s seat, if you will.”
Next up for Broussard is an album of all new material, slated for an October release. He collaborated with a longtime friend, Eric Krasno of funk/jazz band Soulive, with the album currently being mixed.
“This is an all original album, and it’s substantially more soulful and funkier and grittier than most of the stuff I’ve done throughout my entire career. It’s all in my wheelhouse, so it’s not like my fans are going to be jarred by what they hear,” he said. “If the shows lately have been any indication, the new stuff is really hitting home well. We’ve been playing a couple of songs from the new album on this tour, and the fans are digging it. I’m very excited about what’s coming.”
Mike Palm is a TribLive digital producer who also writes music reviews and features. A Westmoreland County native, he joined the Trib in 2001, where he spent years on the sports copy desk, including serving as night sports editor. He has been with the multimedia staff since 2013. He can be reached at mpalm@triblive.com.
