Tab Benoit is Houma’s top music export. Maybe one day the blues guitarist will believe that.

From the crest of the Prospect Street Overpass on the way into Houma, It’s impossible to miss the tall yellow and red billboard off to the left, the one with “Benoit” spelled out in neat script. Below the sign lies Benoit Machine, INC. a mainstay of the local oil-driven economy for 52 years.

Three generations of Benoit men have passed through the family b...