Cajun Folk Songs

Perhaps more than any other state, Louisiana truly deserves the name "melting pot"-and it's not simply because of the jambalaya, red beans and rice, and other delicious foods that formed from the mix of multicultural ingredients. Throughout Louisiana's over 400-year history, many different countries and cultures have left their mark, including France, Spain, England, Germany, Native Americans, and the United States. The state has always welcomed different and new people, and this is one reason the Cajun people came to call this state their home.

The Cajun Migration

One of the many groups who migrated to Louisiana was the Cajuns, who migrated from an area of eastern Canada then called Acadia (now called Nova Scotia). The French-speaking Acadians originally settled on the island in the early 1600s, where they were mainly fur trappers, hunters, and fishermen. Not surprisingly, they shared many cultural elements with their mother country, including French folk songs and instruments like the violin.

In 1755, Britain seized control of Acadia from France, and forcibly removed the French settlers from their homes. Some Acadians went back to France and others moved into the northeastern United States, but some went to Louisiana, invited there by the Spanish who ruled Louisiana at the time. In subsequent decades, many of those who had settled in the United States and France also decided to resettle in Louisiana. These "Cajuns" (shortened from the French word Acadiens) adjusted quickly and began farming, and despite the tropical climate they soon began to prosper.

In the 1800s, Cajuns mainly played two types of music: a cappella songs and instrumental fiddle tunes. Songs could be heard at just about any occasion: work, home, or celebrations and parties. At maisons de bals, or house dances, singing mixed with the loud, sawing sound of a fiddle or two above the shouts and foot stomps of the Cajun dancers. Songs might be original French songs like "Alouette" and "En roulant ma boule," sad songs about exile and migration, or even ballads of lost love-all in French, of course.

Other Influences

Then, in the late 1800s, something pivotal happened to Cajun music. German immigrants arrived in Louisiana and brought along a favorite instrument-the accordion. Cajun musicians loved its big, belching tone and quickly adopted it as their own. They found that the accordion was a perfect match for the fiddle and voice, and soon this instrumental pair backed up nearly every song. Along with a triangle and the Spanish-inspired guitar, these two instruments became the centerpiece of Cajun music for decades.

Cajun music and song has also been influence by the Louisiana Creoles, the name for African Americans who were either enslaved and brought to Louisiana or settled there from islands in the Caribbean. Music elements such as syncopated rhythms and call-and-response song form found its way into Cajun music as well. Native American music resonates, too, heard mainly in the terraced singing style of some Cajun songs.

In the 1920s, record companies began recording Cajun singers and musicians, such as Joseph Falcon, Dennis McGee, and later, Iry LeJeune, probably the greatest Cajun accordionist of all time. Most instrumentalists sang, too, and these early records featured the high-pitched Cajun vocal style on songs like "Allons a Lafayette."

In the 1930s, Cajun music began to incorporate the English language more and more into song texts. But in the 1960s, due in part to performance by Cajun musicians at the Newport Folk Festival, a new nostalgia and pride in Cajun culture took hold and old styles made a profound resurgence. Even today many of these older songs are still the most popular, played by today's Cajun stars, including the Balfa Brothers, Michael Doucet and his band Beausoleil, the Mamou Playboys, and Eddie LeJeune. For evidence that Cajun song is alive and strong, listen no further than country singer Mary Chapin Carpenter's Cajun tribute called "Down at the Twist and Shout."

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