Nathan Abshire
1 2019-06-23T01:59:37-07:00 Rachel Blomquist 4ce9784a4c3c343338fba92002964a449052c7cd 34419 1 Abshire and his accordion plain 2019-06-23T01:59:37-07:00 Johnnie Allan Still Image I-AL-09-Abshire Cajun Musicians; People Center for Louisiana Studies portrait of Abshire and his accordion Center for Louisiana Studies; CC BY-NC-ND Photo All Rights Reserved; CC BY-NC-ND PNG Rachel Blomquist and Center for Louisiana Studies TIF Johnnie Allan and Pierre Diagle 427x600 Center for Louisiana Studies Rachel Blomquist 4ce9784a4c3c343338fba92002964a449052c7cdThis page is referenced by:
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2019-06-21T22:21:08-07:00
Discovery of Commercial Cajun Music: New Styles
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The 1930s was a time of changes in music styles as many imitated what was popular
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2019-11-17T21:06:59-08:00
The 1930s marked not just the beginning of the Great Depression but also a time of social and cultural change in the music industry and lifestyles in Louisiana. The emergence of radio, in the following decades television, led to general dislike of the sound of rough or unpolished music, and the Cajun diatonic accordion with its lack of harmonizing scales for notes played was one of the first instruments to go in the wake of the new styles.[i]
Soon the sounds from Texas and Tennessee that made Western swing (also known as Western string) and the blues string bands from New Orleans and elsewhere along the Mississippi River became preferred in South Louisiana dancehalls. These styles brought forth an increase in Americanization in Cajun music. Besides accordions, instruments such as the triangle, spoons, and string guitars in a typical Cajun line up began to change as well to fit with the swing style.
In June 1934, the Library of Congress's Archive of American Folk Song (AAFS) tasked John and Alan Lomax, a father and son team with recording folk music of the Louisiana region. A Depression-era cultural program, the AAFS sought to document the nation's indigenous music to help boost the country’s morale by celebrating its folk songs.[ii] When traveling around Louisiana looking to record "pure" folk music, the Lomaxes found out that Cajuns were mixing and mashing with other styles.
They captured a music style that mixed French, Afro-Creole, and English words and tunes from Afro-Creole, African, Caribbean, French, Jewish, and American cultures. Not to mention a combination of instruments from all around the world.[iii] Which you can check out here at the John and Alan Lomax in Louisiana 1934 website: https://www.lomax1934.com/song-index.html
Alan Lomax remarked that “[Cajuns’] interpretations of all music they give it something of their own personality and characteristics that make it unmistakably theirs.”[iv]
By the mid-1930s a new style appeared known as "Corinna," a type of blues, hillbilly, jazz mixed together that gave off "sad" vibes and incorporated la musique française.[v] It is thought that the song"Blues Nège" (1934) by Cleoma B. Falcon was an influence on this emerging style.
Two well-known practitioners of this style were Lawrence Walker and Nathan Abshire.
One such song Walker wrote, "Alberta," featured English lyrics and the theme of lamenting about a lover reflected the process of Americanization.
LISTEN:
Alberta sings of a man lamenting the distance between him and his love. It still features the traditional Cajun music lineup: an accordion as the lead instrument and backed with guitars and violins. But this string backing can also be interpreted as part of the hillbilly swing lineups. Yet because of the theme of lamentation, it follows closely to the blues or jazz themes often found in the Corinna style.
"Alberta"
Alberta, Alberta, where have you been so long,
Alberta, Alberta, where have you been so long,
I ain't had no lovin', since you've been gone.
I met Alberta, way across the pond,
I met Alberta, way across the pond,
Didn't write me no letters, you didn't care for me.
Alberta, Alberta, tell the world "Adieu,"
Alberta, Alberta, tell the world "Adieu,"
Just a little bit of lovin', let your heart be true.
Alberta, Alberta, where have you been so long,
Alberta, Alberta, where have you been so long,
I ain't had no lovin', since you've been gone.
Did you know? The tune also became widely famous outside Louisiana and was adopted by several Western swing bands, like Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys in their song "Corrine, Corrina" (1940). This version of the song eventually became a Cajun favorite too, either titled "Alberta," Roberta" or "Corrine, Corrina." Take the time to listen to the Cajun rendition of "Corrine, Corrina."
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2019-06-21T22:21:48-07:00
Discovery of Commercial Cajun Music: The Comeback
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World War II halted music production until victory led to a revival of folk music in the later half of the 1940s
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2019-06-24T21:39:19-07:00
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. 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. 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. 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). Cajun honky-tonk brought back fiddles, box guitars, steel guitars, electric guitars, string basses, drums, and even the old-timey, traditional accordions.
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." 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 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.
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 traditional 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."
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 Adroin’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.
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.