About Cajun Music

Having now firmly placed the Cajun Culture in our mental framework we moved on to ‘Mark Savoy’s (pronounced Savoy) Music Shop. Here he makes accordions for the Cajun musical elite. We had hoped to meet him, however he was away on business at the time, so we spoke to his wife.

Like many other colonising cultures, the Acadien’s brought their French music and dance with them. (it was cheap, didn’t need books and is an excellent way to help keep an extended family together and sane). Originally the instruments were home made and consisted of fiddle, iron triangle (le Tit Fer- you work it out), spoons and washboard. The accordione (I know nothing of the niceties of squeeze boxes) was introduced from Germany in the 1850’s (New Orleans was a big port). The standard German accordion was a small, diatonic (different note sucking and blowing), single row button accordion with 4 voices, with only two bass voices on the left hand. This provides music in a single key. C and G are the favourite, although many players will have several, often to suit their voice. I have seen/heard C# and D.

The characteristic Cajun Sound is created by an interplay of accordion rhythm and the rhythm provided by the rest of the band.

I classify Cajun music as being a music form which has come about to support dancing. Almost everywhere that Cajun Music is played you will find dancers. Most of the dancing seems to be couple based and much of it looks like it has come out of the huge explosion of dance forms that were created post world war I, with the advent of dance halls. Two step, waltz, lindy hop have all been taken, but modified to suit the driving rhythm of Cajun music.

You Nice people of Eunice.

Thursday, the weather has returned to sunny skies, although the temperature has dropped to the sixties and thirties at night. It now feels like the crisp autumn days back home that tell us winter is around the corner. In this case high pressure build over The Rockies and forces a cold North wind to sweep down from Canada and the Great Lakes across the Mississippi plains, right down to the Gulf of Mexico (where we are).

As it was a nice sunny day we decided to return to Eunice to see the things missed on Saturday. As we drove down we took a couple of pictures of the extensive rice fields we drove through. Many of them were still flooded for the rice in them, others were dry and bare, but with the little levees between the fields.

In Eunice we visited the Jean Lafitte Acadian Plains Cultural Center, which is a National Park. It is one of six locations which make up the park, some of them are just buildings, like this one, others are land areas which reflect the geography. There is a big bayou park near Westwego, where we camped, outside of New Orleans. There is also a park at the site of the battle between the English and Americans, which is the story of the song made so famous by Lonnie Donnegan, (UK) and Mac Wiseman (USA), The Battle of New Orleans. This battle was fought as part of the little known war between the Americans and the British in 1812-1815, where the English 10,000 troops came second to General Andy (later to be President) Jacksons 1500 assortment army, mostly militia men. It also included the famous Pirate Jean Laffite, who is a big name round Louisiana, hence the name of the National Park.

Saturday Night in Eunice

Saturday. Well after the excitement of Fred's Lounge this morning (we really pushed the boat out by going to Fred's Lounge) this afternoon we determined to go a bit further south and go to Eunice. ( Sally's mother was called Eunice , so it's a bit strange to find a town of that name!!) Eunice has a very nice Art Deco Historic District, consisting mostly of its Main Street. It has several stores and The Liberty Theater, which first opened in 1924. Now every Saturday it is used as the venue for a Cajun Music Concert, "Rendez-vous des Cajuns," which is broadcast live on a local radio station, Radio KVRS and is available on the Internet as a TV broadcast.

You have to turn up at 4.00 to buy your ticket ($5.00), though the show does not start until 6.00. Inside you will find a number of volunteers/audience old timers who will tell you almost anything about Eunice, The Liberty Theater, Cajun music, the local area. Using their expertise we asked for a good place to eat before the show. That would be 'Ronnies' - pile it high and sell it cheap. Sounded good to us. True to their description we had a great Cup of Gumbo followed by beef tips on rice, with Purple Hull Peas (like a red bean stew, no sausage though), corn or green beans and two drinks set us back $20.00. We couldn't eat it all!!

On returning to our seats the the Liberty Theater, we watched a great concert of two Cajun groups, both with young accordionists. Cameron Dupuy of The Cajun Troubadours is only thirteen years old.

The show was introduced by Barry Jean Anclet, in crazy 50/50 Cajun French/English. It sounds French, but has an awful lot of English words that get ejected from the Gallic flow of talk. All the vocals/song names were in French. As the bands played so couples got up and danced round the small space between the the very uncomfortable old cinema seating and the stage.

It was another great night of Americana. An event that is unique to Eunice, Louisiana and its Cajun Heritage. For us it had echoes of the Carter Family Fold. It was a gathering as much as a performance. An event that required the positive participation of everyone. It was a great evening which we enjoyed immensely.