The History of Cajun Music and It's Instruments

Cajun Music, once found only in the backwoods of Louisiana, has now made a prominent place for itself in America.  Music is a major life force of the Cajun culture.  It is vital to the continuation of that culture and by continuing to live, it serves to bond together the generations.   Those who can identify with this music can identify with the people because the music is a reflection of the lives, strengths, sorrows, and joys of the people.

Describing Cajun music would be like summarizing one hundred years of the evolution of a people.  Surely the music is different things to different people.  It is a lone ballad singer singing song stories as remembered from French and Acadian ancestors; it's the acoustic wail of an accordion heard echoing for miles from the porch of an isolated house on the prairie; it's the music played by friends crowded together in the kitchen corner playing music and drinking beer while spicy odors of a sauce piquante fill the room.  Cajun music is also the slick, electric band with accordion, steel guitar, and twin fiddles in the dim, smoke filled club, filled with gliding dancers; it's the rubboard and the triple row accordion driving to the beat of an electric bass in a black club in a creole community; it's a lonely song with a fiddle seconding the beat, while the lead fiddle plays its heart out.

In the past, Cajun music was looked upon with, at best, a certain apathy by the middle class.  The music was so alive, so constantly present on the radio and on the dancehall scene, that it was simply taken for granted.  It was just a part of life intricately interwoven with farming, feasting, and entertainment.  It was not an endangered species crying out for the help of preservationists; it was not elite; it was not noticed.

When the Acadians came from Nova Scotia to Louisiana in 1764, they brought with them many beautiful ballads that told stories of bygone years.  Many of these songs can be traced back to France and many songs from France drifted to the bayou and the prairie region via Nova Scotia and New Orleans.  These ballads are not widely performed today, but were the basis of what is now accepted as cajun music.

In its earlier days, the music was most often used as a focal point of social gatherings and was usually played by several people.  The lyrics of the songs were repeated vocalizations of suffering and loneliness rather than a story or the lyrics were rhythmic, nonsensical rhymes to tease and have fun.  Besides the voice, the fiddle was the primary "music maker" in the early history of the Acadians.  Usually two fiddles were played together, one playing the "lead" melody and the other playing a rhythmic back-up.  The button accordion arrived in Louisiana as early as 1884 with the German immigrants, but it did not immediately gain the mass appeal it was to have in the 1920's.  The guitar was added to the music in the late 1920's as back up or rhythm accompaniment to the accordion and fiddle.  Therefore, a "group" usually consisted of an accordion, a fiddle, and a guitar or triangle for rhythm back-up.  Examples of some of those earlier "legends" are Dennis McGee, Wade Fruge, Sady Courville and Lee Miller.

During the World War II, the string band era in south Louisiana was at its peak.  To the existing instruments were added the upright string bass and drums.  Even banjos and mandolins could be heard in the bands.  The steel guitar was also introduced during this era.  This was a time of hugh mainstream American influence in Cajun music.  The Hackberry Ramblers, Leo Soileau and his Aces, J.B. Fuselier, Harry Choates, Doc Guidry and Happy Fats were some of the great names of this time period.

After World War II, Cajun national pride was in full bloom; those who had left during the war saw that Cajuns were as "good as anyone else".  They longed for the symbols of their homeland.  It was during this time period that amplifiers were introduced to Cajun music.

Most recently, within this modern era, cajun culture has been noticed by the world outside Louisiana's borders.  Cajun cuisine, for example, continues to enjoy its popularity.  Cajun music has also made great strides, especially in the newer styles of "swamp-pop" and "zydeco" music.  Some of today's popular groups are Beausoleil, Wayne Toups, Steve Riely and the Mamou Playboys, The Basin Boys, and Atchafalya.

And the music continues to change as the world is changing.  The traditional music being performed in the dancehalls in Louisiana today is usually compromised  of an accordion, twin fiddles playing harmony, drums, electric bass, an electric guitar and a pedal steel.  The singing is still in French and the repertoire is often largely composed of old Cajun standards.  The spirit of the music is changing to reflect the spirit of the Louisiana of today; therefore, the interpretation of the music is not the same.  In the twentieth century Louisiana, it would be hard to recreate the music that came from extreme isolation, from daily dealings with the many diseases for which there were no cures.  The early music came from a people who dealt day by day with the problems of living in a nearly tropical, inhospitable insect ridden land.  The work was hard and play was intense and liberating....a way to get away from the toils and difficulties of farming in the hot sun where the insects ate the plants as fast as a man could plant them.  The music was loud, the food spicy and heavy enough to fill up a hard working appetite.  Today, Louisiana has the advantages of any modern country.  The pain expressed in the music today comes from different types of hardships than those that existed in the past.  The experiences of living in the past in Louisiana cannot be dublicated, and Cajun music today is about this new and different world, changed by the people who are living in it and by the products of this new world.

Click the following link Cajun Music for an example of the music discussed here.