Music associated with French and American dance forms influenced much of early Cajun social life in the 1920s.  From their Anglo-American neighbors, Cajun musicians learned jigs, hoedowns, and Virginia reels to enrich their growing repertoire which already included polkas, contredanses, varsoviennes and valses-à-deux-temps.5  Similar to the contredanse (counter-dance), the Cajun French square dance embraced a loosely structured call-out routine throughout the dance number.  These Cajun dances appeared in Acadie in the 17th century and flourished throughout.  According to m ..read more

The early surge of musical creativity carried over into a new period as Cajun performers throughout the 1930s, adapted tunes they heard on the radio. Joe and Cleoma were both known to have taken popular tunes of the day and recorded them in Cajun French.   After the Great Depression, Joe and Cleoma were approached by RCA to travel to their makeshift studio in San Antonio for a recording session.  Together, the duo recorded four sings in 1934, one of them known as "La Fille A Oncle Elair" (#2191).  The song's popular was easily eclipsed by the record's popular flipside re ..read more

With songs like "Two Step de Eunice" and "Blues De Basille," (#531) accordionist Amede Ardoin, helped by his fiddle player and traveling companion Dennis McGee, became one of the first musicians to record Louisiana's Cajun music. Ardoin was an accordion virtuoso who, by all accounts, had an uncanny knack for improvising French lyrics with his strange high voice.1  Named after the town of Basile, Ardoin was no stranger to the "blues" that this town offered him, One time they had a dance hall in Basile, and what saved him was some white guy who was learning how to play the guitar ..read more

Hailing form the same Pointe Noire area west of Church Point that produced the remarkable Lejeune clan of singers and musicians, Alphée Bergeron had played before the war (including alongside Amede Ardoin and Mayuse Lafleur), but like many of his contemporaries, he had put aside his accordion for two reasons: first, because he felt he should tend to the serious business of raising his family and second, because accordion driven Cajun music had faded from the scene.  In the years following WWII, many were growing uncomfortable with the widespread loss of ethnic identity caused ..read more

While he mirrored the midcentury infatuation with country-flavored honky-tonk music—fiddle-driven and slide-guitar-embellished—Nathan Abshire later helped lead a resurgence of more traditionally crafted Cajun music with the sound of the old-time button accordion reinstalled at its center. This was the music that had fueled both bals des maisons (house parties) and fais do-dos (weekend dances) in the old days.2    After the war, Nathan's big break came when Ernest Thibodeaux and Wilson Granger convinced the Avalon Club owner, Quincy Davis, that the band needed an accordion player ..read more

Cajun swing fiddler Harry Choates never worried or cared about he daily trials and tribulations of life.  Such things as far as he was concerned could be drowned in a liquor bottle.  Harry was addicted to the music.  The feelings of others were of no concern to him.  After the breakup of his first band, he continued to find recording opportunities; this time for Macy Henry's label with a song called "Louisiana Boogie" (#134).  In this April 1950 recording session, he re-purposed an old Breaux Brothers 1929 recording of "Vas Y Carrement", better known as "Step It Fast ..read more

Cajun accordionist Amede Ardoin himself was a sought-after dance musician who played both white Cajun gatherings and black la-la dances and was known for his ability to improvise lyrics about those in attendance; a practice which sometimes got him in trouble. It might seems strange that a black Creole musician who left little more of a trace on the world than 34 scratchy recordings would come to be known as the father of a musical style rooted in the culture of French-Canadian exiles. In this sense, the record stands as a testament to the musical creativity happening in Louisiana during the f ..read more

Chester Isaac 'Pee Wee' Broussard was born in Henderson, Louisiana into a musical Cajun family. His father, Sosthène Broussard, played mandolin and clarinet as well as accordion, while his grandfather played accordion and fiddle. Two brothers played guitar: Jules played rhythm and Jim played "4-string guitar".1   In 1952, a New Iberia DJ arranged Pee Wee to record at J.D. Miller's studio in Crowley along with Walter Guidry on steel guitar, and Nathan Latiolais on drums.1   Popularized by Aldus Roger, "Creole Stomp" (#1051) is one of the most covered post-war Cajun instrum ..read more

By 1936, it had been over a year since Joe and Cleoma Falcon had stepped foot in a studio before they had scored another contract with RCA.  Eli Oberstein and other recording executives had arrived the week before Mardi Gras and began loading their equipment into the second floor of the building.   There, they planned a three-day session where bands such as Bo Carter and the Arthur Smith Trio were waiting for their turn.1     Feeling the need for a fiddle player, Joe convinced Crowley native and musician, Moise “Mose” Morgan join their duo.  Mose had learned ..read more

Before there was zydeco music, early French-speaking musicians in Southwest Louisiana were creating French-Creole music. And, one of the earliest recording artists of this style was accordion player Amede Ardoin, whose life on the Creole music trail went from stardom to tragedy. Ardoin was a virtuoso on the accordion, and he wrote and recorded a series of songs from 1929 to 1934.  According to author Darrell Bourque: He was kind of like a rock star of his own day and time.  The most repeated a line in his songs, other than wanting a girl to pay attention to him, ... this thing about ..read more