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After Ann Allen heard Cajun music, her love for the French language entwined with a passion for the traditional music of southwestern Louisiana. That dual fascination bloomed further during the Richmonder’s trip to the 1976 National Folk Festival at Wolf Trap National Park for the Performing Arts. Meeting a group of Cajun musicians there playing under a tree, she found all of them intriguing, but noticed the handsome accordion player most of all. He noticed the radiant young woman from Richmond, too.
A year later, Allen married Marc Savoy at a fall foliage-draped wedding in her mother’s West End backyard. After the ceremony, they drove her blue VW Beetle to Eunice, his Louisiana hometown, and made a home together in the Cajun heartland. The musically prolific life Ann Allen Savoy has lived since includes performances throughout the world, many recordings and four Grammy nominations.