Jambalaya, Apple Pie, Chante Quelque Chose Oh Yé Yaille: A History of Cajun Culture through Music from the Early 1920s to the Late 1980s

Discovery of Commercial Cajun Music: The Comeback

While the Great Depression slowed sales of Cajun music recordings, the declaration of war for the United States in World War II by 1945 dropped sales of all recordings, and the American Federation of Musicians placed a recording ban in the wake of the war as the discs could be used to make bullets.[i] World War II unified the United States in a way that had never been more apparent. Over fifteen million men and women went into the U.S. military as millions of others left to work in the war effort. Cajun men left their homes and farms to serve and confronted cultural shock when setting out beyond their parishes. 
 
On the home front, military camps and forts, Prisoners of War camps, agriculture migration, the production of the Higgins boats and other war materials in New Orleans, and the oil field, all attracted people to Louisiana.[ii] South Louisianans soon became connected to the rest of the country in their efforts to support the war. Oilfield work after the war gradually replaced small farmers in South Louisiana, and people from all over the country moved to Louisiana or Texas seeking oilfield jobs and bringing Americanization with them.[iii] Many Cajuns even moved to Texas for work in the oil fields during this time, cementing the new music style of Western swing into Cajun music that emerged in 1946. 

 

With another advance in technology, regional areas were able to provide for their own small independent record companies to capture new and upcoming musicians from South Louisiana and Texas.

 

As Cajuns and these independent record labels connected South Louisiana to the rest of the world, once again Cajun music started taking up another different sound. Much of Cajun music in its revival was still exhibiting the sounds of hillbilly music, but with work in the oilfield still influencing the locations of where Cajun families were living, many started moving into Texas. It is no surprise that Cajun music began to take up the sound of country music, with a twist.




This sound, “Cajun honky-tonk,” was popular among the working class of Texas with its high amplification, percussive “shock

rhythm,”(Shock rhythm was when all six of the strings of the guitar were struck at the same time) and closed chords (also known
as a "close position" chord, played when all its tones as close together as they can be).[iv] Cajun honky-tonk brought back fiddles, box guitars, steel guitars, electric guitars, string basses, drums, and even the old-timey, traditional accordions.[v]

 






Honky-tonk music became very popular in the dance clubs frequented by the migrant labor force for the oilfield and shipyards throughout the Texas-Louisiana border and Oklahoma, thus creating the nickname for the geographical area, the "Honky-Tonk Corridor."[vi] From this corridor came the song that brought Cajun music back full swing, Harry Choates’s version of “Jole Blon” (sometimes “Jole Blonde”)—now considered the Cajun national anthem.
 

 

 

 




Harry Choates was a musical product of the fading Western swing band era, also called Western string era, with rising influences from Cajun Honky-tonk. “Jole Blon" not only gave that surge in pride for Cajuns with their music again, but it also went further out of state and became a national hit, thanks to those media outlets and record labels networks in the Honky-Tonk Corridor. 

 









LISTEN: Choates led "Jole Blon" with a fiddle and backed it with western style swing rhythms and honky-tonk sound to
create this hit that became a standard for Cajun music. You can HEAR the added vocalizations common in the western/honky-tonk styles (compare with Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys in the pervious chapter o really hear the similarities). 



 

FRENCH:                                                         ENGLISH TRANSLATION:                       

 

Jole Blon, joli fille,                                           Jole Blon, pretty girl

Chère petite, joli coeur,                                    Dear little one, pretty heart,

Tu m’as laissé pour t’en aller                          You left me to go away

            avec un autre, chère petite,                                with another, dear little one,

Dans le pays de la Louisiane,                           In the country of Louisiana,

            mais malheureuse.                                               You poor one.

 

 

 


The original tune and lyrics were recorded by the Breaux Family Band and called "Ma Blonde Est Parti" (1929).  
 

 

LISTEN: Check out these other renditions of this iconic song. Choates also remade "Jole Blon" in English the same year as his original song. Other artists enjoy the freedom of adding to the lyrics of this song to make it their own. Like mixing Zydeco and Swamp Pop or the rock’n’roll style, and then the contemporary style of Cajun music.

 



 Other Cajun musicians began to reappear on the scene after the war, like Nathan Abshire, Lawrence Walker, and Iry LeJeune. These artists, however, were apart of the revivals of the accordion and "the old dance hall sound."[vii] Lawrence Walker was considered the leader of the resurrection of the accordion, Nathan Abshire was known for his accordion style of Cajun blues and Iry LeJeune as an accordion bluesman. LeJeune modeled his style after Amédé Ardoin, and rose to fame through new French radio stations. One such famous radio song was “Lacassine Special.”



 

 LISTEN: The melody of “Lacassine Special" came from Amédé Ardoin's “Two Step de Mama” (1929) that was a two-step with a lively beat. LeJeune’s lyrics though give off a sad blues feels about a husband threatening to leave his wife.[viii]

 

 

Did you know? The older version of the dance hall sound was of the Western string era of the 1920s (used by Lawrence Walker), as honky-tonk dance hall used the swing era of the West instead mixed 1930s and 1940s styles (used by Harry Choates and Iry LeJeune). And to reiterate the term “dance hall sound” came about from the fact that the rhythms or tunes used in songs came from popular music played in dance halls.





 FRENCH TRANSLATION:                                 ENGLISH TRANSLATION:
Hé comment mais toi tu crois                                             Hey, how do you think
Que mon je va, mon je va faire,                                          That I’m gonna make it,
Tout le temps dans les misères,                                           All the time in misery,
Tout le temps après souffert,                                               All the time suffering,
Jusqu’à la porte à tes paroles,                                             All because of your words,
À tes paroles que toi, que toi                                              All because of your words
Tu m’avais dit                                                                     Of your words that you said to me.
           
Oh, t’as chère vilaine manière                                            Oh, your dear ugly way
Que toi t'as tout le temps eu,                                               That you always had,
Faudra que j'oublie tout ça                                                  I must forget all that,
Si toi tu veux rester                                                             If you want to stay
Avec ton cher nègre,                                                           With your dear nègre,
Mais regarde, mais tu peux voir                                         Well, look, you can just take
Le chemin et t'en aller.                                                        To the road and go.
 

With this accordion revival, Cajun music made its way onto record players and radio stations around the South. Listeners began to discover the untapped sound of South Louisiana’s regional music of the Cajuns’ and Creoles’ as the Americanization process that had been happening since the start of the twentieth century left its mark on the la musique française. By the end of the decade, a long return to the roots and cultural pride in Cajun music and heritage had begun to leave its mark on music industry and make it their own. Over the next four decades (1950-1980) Cajun music saw the drastic changes from competing locally to the national level. 
 
 

 

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