Well, the days are already getting shorter and soon the temperatures will start to creep down while the leaves turn colors and fall. Plus, we're getting close to Festivals Acadiens et Creoles! All in all, it's a great time to live in Louisiana.
But, unfortunately, not everything about this season is good. We still have to watch out for the threat of storms in the Gulf. And we have to deal with an equally dangerous time: Grammy Season.
Herman Fuselier reports that this year's long list of Zydeco and Cajun albums has been released. Sadly, it seems to contain just as many--if not more--pitfalls than in the past.
Fuselier notes that the Valcour Records's prank album Christine Balfa Plays the Triangle is among the nominees. And while I think the idea of a solo triangle album is hilarious, if it won, the damage it could do to the credibility of Cajun and Creole music would be beyond measure.
Another problem--at least for me--is the appearance of ghost albums on this list. You know the kind...the ones that have been "released" but are as of yet unavailable or only available through certain media outlets. I simply can't view this as a legitimate award if it gives the nod to albums that most people have not even heard of, much less actually heard.
And finally, there is the problem of Michael Doucet. I have nothing against Michael Doucet personally, and I have a great admiration for other members of Beausoleil (who get unfairly overshadowed by their bandleader). But there is a danger in another Michael Doucet win. Just this year, the Polka category was removed from the Grammy Program because the category was viewed as "uncompetitive." Why was it deemed "uncompetitive?" Simple. One artist dominated the category for years. No other artist ever had a chance. If voters aren't careful, Michael Doucet's fame and notoriety could do the same for the Cajun/Zydeco category.
My favorite albums of this year aren't even on this list. But if I had to choose a winner from this long list, it would be Bonsoir Catin's Vive L'Amour or Ray Landry's album...or the Magnolia Sisters' Stripped Down...somehow that one sounds like something I'd like.
Guaranteed Lover, Donna Angelle and the Zydeco Posse
Nu Band Nu Sound, Corey Arceneaux and the Zydeco Hot Peppers
Alter Ego, Chris "Candyman" Ardoin
How Great is Your Love, Sean Ardoin and R.O.G.K.
Plays the Triangle, Christine Balfa
Hey Day, Bayou Roux
Alligator Purse, BeauSoleil avec Michael Doucet
Vive L'Amour, Bonsoir Catin
Live at Festivals Acadiens, Jimmy Breaux and Friends
Super T, T Broussard and the Zydeco Steppers
The Zydeco Knockout, JJ Caillier
Cajun Country Ramble, The Cajun Strangers
Only Fools Rush In, Johnny Chauvin and the Mojo Band
Up In Flames, Dwayne Dopsie and the Zydeco Hellraisers
Zydeco Gone Wild!, Rockin' Dopsie and the Zydeco Twisters
Sud du Sud, David Greely
Live from Breaux Bridge Part One, High Performance
Mes Racines Cadien Sont Creux, Ray Landry and Friends
Welcome to My World, Guyland Leday and Friends Zydeco Band
A Matter of Time, Corey Ledet
The Autonomous Fit for Survival, Lil Nathan and the Zydeco Big Timers
Stripped Down, Magnolia Sisters
From the Bayou to the Black Forest — Live in Germany, Mojo and the Bayou Gypsies
Stronger, J Paul Jr. and the Zydeco Nubreeds
Live at the 2009 New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, Pine Leaf Boys
Redemption, Brad Randell and the Zydeco Ballers
Homegrown, Early "Washboard" Sally
Joel Savoy and Linzay Young, Joel Savoy and Linzay Young
Gotta Be Me, Lil Wayne Singleton and Same Ol' Two Step
Zydeco Heart and Soul, Curley Taylor and Zydeco Trouble
Best of the Bayou, Various Artists
L'esprit Creole, Cedric Watson
Trailride, Zydeco Kicks
Lay Your Burden Down, Buckwheat Zydeco
In case you're curious, here are the results for the 2009 CFMA "Le Cajun" awards. And if your name is Paul Daigle, you'll like the results:
Fiddler: Travis Benoit
Accordionist: Paul Daigle
Female Vocalist: Helenne Boudreaux
Male Vocalist: Ray Landry
Best 1st CD: 3 Daigles and a Huval
Song of the year: Ray Landry & Helenne Boudreaux "My Cajun Roots Run Deep"
Band of the year: Paul Daigle
People's choice: 3 Daigles and a Huval
This is not going to be a typical blog entry for this site.
I've just finished reading Charles J. Stivale's Disenchanting Les Bon Temps: Identity and Authenticity in Cajun Music and Dance. It's an interesting read, though Stivale's prose is hamstrung by his incessant need to justify his every intellectual move with literary theory.
But he provides some interesting discussions of how Cajun identity is constructed at a dance through the fusion of place with audience with musicians. And he offers some really good analysis of some of the films and documentaries that explain or depict Cajun culture.
In all of this analysis, though, Stivale falls pretty squarely on the side of musical innovators as opposed to traditionalists.
Now, I'm not one of those who believes that this music should be played one single way and no other. In fact, I'm more than aware that the style of music that we call "traditional" is really nothing but a single snapshot in time. We call the music of the late 1920s and of the 1950s and early 1960s "traditional." But most of us reject the string band music of the 1930s. And we all tend to forget or ignore the music that happened before Cajuns and Creoles found the accordion. Most of all, those of us who play musical instruments tend to completely forget the vast field of "home music."
So, really, our idea of "traditional" Cajun music is a contrived idea. But at this point, Stivale and I part company.
He tends to reject any notion of "authentic" or "traditional" because it is a contrived category. For him, this opens the field up for any and all kinds of experimentation.
I, on the other hand, say, "So what? Who cares if it is contrived? The idea still has meaning and importance."
To use an example: my idea of how to celebrate a "traditional" and "authentic" Chistmas is based on a very narrow range of Christmas celebrations that I remember from the ages of around 6 to 15. Since I'm now almost 40, this means that most of my Christmas celebrations have not stuck to this model. But when I think of Christmas, those nine or so years are what I think of. And they are what I use as a basis when I construct Christmas celebrations for my son.
Even though those nine years are not really, honestly "traditional," they have become the basis of our family's understanding of Christmas. They are a guide that we use so that--no matter what else changes in our lives--each new Christmas bears some resemblance to those that came before. For us, Christmas becomes a return to a "home base" of family identity.
This is what Stivale doesn't get. Like most people, he identifies Cajuns based solely on outward appearance. For him, being Cajun is all about music and dancing. He forgets that we have lives, that these dancers and musicians have jobs that they go to every day, that they have families and worries about money.
These Cajun music events are our cultural equivalents of a family Christmas. In a world where Cajuns live a hyper-modern life full of the same traffic jams, multi-tasking, and status-seeking as most other Americans, the Cajun music event marks a moment of return. The fact that many of us clamor after a "traditional" music isn't a mark of our backwardness or our naivete. In fact, it is a reaction against our blatantly modern lives. It is a cultural "home base" that we use to affirm who we are, despite the fact that we work white-collar jobs and secretly enjoy watching "Star Trek" re-runs on Monday nights.
Stivale fails to recognize that Cajuns are more than just their music and dance, that they lead full lives with other, varied interests. Thus, he fails to understand how our music functions within our larger lives. I pick up my accordion to remind myself of a connection to something bigger than myself. I dance with my wife in the same way my parents probably danced when they met at a dance one 4th of July long ago. I teach my son these songs and this music so that he can connect to a culture that he was born into.
Of course it is contrived. All culture is contrived. All tradition is an illusion--including the scholarly tradition in which Stivale and I work during the day. But it is ironic that he worries so much, in his book, about connecting his ideas to one tradition while insinuating that Cajuns are wrong to do the same. And it is myopic of him to fail to see that his own scholarly tradition is just as fleeting as the traditions of his Cajun subjects.
I don't presume to speak for why others gravitate toward the music they choose. But as someone who finds himself returning, again and again, to the "traditional" and "authentic" stuff (even when I know it is not really traditional or authentic), I resent the charge that this is a backward impulse based on a naive or insufficient understanding of the world.
In fact, I would really love to hear how Stivale would have any culture maintain a sense of identity without fabricating its own sense of "tradition" or "authenticity." Without looking to the past, I don't see any way to maintain a culture's cohesion. And while Stivale is more than willing to throw out any notion of the "traditional" or "authentic," he never broaches the subject of what might take its place in maintaining cultural cohesion.
Growing up in Louisiana, I never really understood any of those poems about summer that you read in college. If you read someone like Wordsworth, it's just constant gushing about how wonderful summer is: flowery, mild, wonderful in every way.
Of course, he's from England.
In Louisiana, summer is often about as "dead" a season as winter--I'd say even more so. Lawns start to turn brown and look much like they do in winter. Oak trees start to shed their leaves because foliage is a liability in this heat. Even my son, who usually loves to be outside, won't venture away from the air-conditioning.
Musically and culturally, this is the deadest season in Louisiana as well. Festivals are few and far between. Most organizers would rather wait until the temps cool off a bit. A lot of the local talent is gone, too. Many of the more popular bands are touring in Europe or the cooler regions of the country. Others skip off to the mountains of West Virginia to teach Cajun music at the Augusta Heritage Center's Cajun/Creole Week.
Usually, one of the few respites from the summer doldrums is the Liberty Theatre's weekly Rendezvous de Cadiens program in Eunice. But this year, even the Liberty has succumbed to the heat. Because of a water leak from the air-conditioning system of the Liberty and the neighboring Jean Lafitte Prairie Acadian Center, the show has been put on hold while repairs are made. And unfortunately, a recent article in The Eunice News suggests that the closure will be much longer than at first expected.
It looks like those hours of practice may have to pay off. With no one around to entertain us and nowhere to go to be entertained, we'll have to make our own fun and wait for "les veilleurs" to stop by for an evening visit after the midday heat has passed.
Well, I guess it's been a while, hasn't it. And I wish I could offer a better explanation than that I've just been really busy, but that's all I've got. Sorry for the delay.
Anyway, here's another waltz. In fact, this may be the waltz for Cajun accordion players. This is the one that brought the accordion roaring back in popularity and brought an end to the string band era in Cajun music...not that there's anything wrong with string bands...except that they sound too much like Texas C&W music...and they were starting to sing in English...and, well, they didn't have accordions.
As legend has it, Iry LeJeune's recording of "The Love Bridge Waltz" along with the return of GI's from World War II resulted in a renaissance for the accordion after people remembered how good things were back when everyone was squeezing away.
As a sidenote, anyone who has not already read Ron Yule and Ervin LeJeune's biography of Iry should get a copy. It's called Iry LeJeune: Wailin' the Blues Cajun Style and offers a complete account of Iry LeJeune's life as well as a boat-load of pictures. Plus, Chris Miller offers a chapter on Iry's accordion style, and the book includes complete lyrics for all of Iry's songs. The book is available for purchase through Ron Yule's website.
Here are the tabs. As usual, this is only a basic melody. In an attempt to show the tie between the melody and the beat, I've grouped notes together with dashes when they are played on the same beat. Thus, in the first measure of the turn, the 5, 5, and 5' would be played on the first beat of the waltz (the bass button on the left hand), then the two 6' notes would be played on the second and third beats (the two presses of the chord on the left hand). Typically, I prefer to add octaves and blends in place of the 6' and 6 notes. However, I often play the turn with single notes:
The Tune (play twice):
| 5 5 | ||||||||||||||
| 7' | 6' | 6' | | | 6' | 7' | 7' | | | 7 | 6 | 6 | | | 6 | 7 | 7 |
| 7' | 6' | 6' | | | 6' | 7' | 7' | | | 7'-7 | 7'-6' | 5' | | | 5 | 5 | - |
| 5-5-5' | 6' | 6' | | | 5'-6'-5' | 5 | 5 |
| 6'-7'-6' | 5' | 5' | | | 5'-6'-5' | 5 | 5 |
Joe Hall is one of the many Louisiana musicians who have set their sights on the preservation of their music and culture. However, he is one of only a few of the Creole musicians who have turned away from the contemporary Zydeco sound and focused their energies on preserving older Creole songs and musical traditions. His first two albums--Joe Hall and Mitch Reed and La Danse Arrête Pas--pay homage to the traditional music of the old time bals de maison that served as entertainment for Cajun and Creole communities. And as a member of the advisory board for NuNu's Nightlight in Arnaudville, he works to create an old-time dancehall feel in one of Acadiana's newest night spots.
Recently, Joe has put together a new band, Joe Hall and the Louisiana Canecutters. With the Canecutters, Joe performs in a more contemporary style, as their first album, Good Times, Good Music, demonstrates.
The Canecutters are currently the house band at NuNu's, and this January, Joe and his friends held a recording party for an upcoming live album.
Last Spring, I had a chance to talk with Joe about his background, his interest in the traditional Creole sound, and his friendship with Bois Sec Ardoin.
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JM: The first thing I’d like to ask you is to tell me about your musical background. I know that your grandfather was King Ned and that you’ve been influenced by Freeman Fontenot, Calvin Carriere, but what do you point to as the biggest influence?
JH: The biggest, the biggest influences in my being a musician-—first of all, there was my grandfather; that’s where the love came from. The love of playing the accordion, playing the old Creole French way. I was never able to learn anything from him. But I think what I did take from him was the love. And the second thing that happened to me as far as my music was when an old auntie of mine, Viola Ardoin, introduced me to Bois Sec. That was something that really told me, man, you got it; you just got to work to get it. You know what I’m saying? So, I hung out with Bois Sec a whole lot. And, third, but far from being the least, was the time I spent with Nolton Simien. The time I spent with Nolton Simien, he’s the one who sat down with me and told me, “You know, Joe, that whole style you have, it’s cool. It’s real cool. But it’s not a progressive style, it’s not progressive. It’s a style that sits right there. Now, it’s hard to do it if you never did it before.” But he said “To tell you the truth, you’re a young man and you got some pretty talented fingers.” He’d say, “Why don’t you start doing something a little updated?” He said, “I’m gonna help you.” And I spent a lot of time with Nolton Simien, and in my opinion, Nolton is one of the better accordion players around. For some reason, for some reason, he never just pushed to be in the light all the time. And they had a lot of musicians that did that, you know? I mean, I put him up there with Marc [Savoy], man. And then the vocals. [Laughs]. I mean it’s there for Nolton, man, it’s there. So, that’s the three I took my style after. I mean, my grandfather, the love. Bois Sec, he had—-not so much the advantage of Amede’s style, but he had Amede’s songs. He knew all of ‘em. And this was my link to the style, the closest thing to my grandfather, you know? And then Nolton was modern. [. . .] I started learning more with Nolton. Triplets. And I always had a nice drive on the accordion, but, man, the stuff I got from [him], it’s really put me on the level where my good friend[s] like Poullard and—-Yesterday, I was talking to Blake [Miller], and Blake said “Man, that’s all Poullard was talking about was the last CD and he said Joe’s really playin.’” And that’s a big compliment coming from someone like Ed Poullard. It’s a real cool compliment. Yeah, compliments from people like Ed Poullard, Jesse Lege, every now and then Marc. You got some people who don’t compliment many people. But I get compliments. And it means a lot. It means a lot.
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