BON TEMPS ROULER – A PERSONAL DISCOVERY OF CAJUN MUSIC

Cajun music began at Walton-on-the-Naze in 1987 – well it did for me! At the Walton Folk Festival that year the master of Appalachian flat-foot stepping, Ira Bernstein, was performing to the accompaniment of two zany Californians – Evo and Jemmy Bluestein. These multi-instrumentalists played a range of exciting music on fiddle, single row melodeon, guitar, banjo and a piece of corrugated stainless steel which was hung around the neck and bashed with a pair of spoon handles. Much of the music they played was Cajun, a sort of "dancing-off-the-walls" type of music that was both vibrant and infectious. Having played melodeon for a number of Morris sides over the years, I was keen to find out more about this style of playing and the music of Louisiana.

Following a brief, and totally unsuccessful, introduction by the Bluestein’s on "how to play Cajun style accordion", I spent the next few months floundering around trying to work out what it was all about, who to listen to and which records to buy. It’s worth pointing out at this stage that what we call a single row, four stop melodeon, the Cajuns call a Cajun accordion. This should not be confused with the piano accordion as played by Scottish dance bands and the majority of Louisiana Zydeco players, but that’s another story.

Attracted by now to anything with the word "Cajun" in it, I bought a Castagnari Cajun accordion. This was a mistake. Although it cost two arms and a leg to buy and was a joy to play, it sounded nothing like what I was hearing on the records. This restricted my already limited learning capabilities and once more I floundered. Even personal tuition from Paul Judge, Cajun accordion player with UK band The Lizards, and regular visits to Buttermountain Boys gigs failed to get things kick-started.

And then the big breakthrough! New Year’s Eve 1988, Channel 4 television "Aly Bain Meets the Cajuns". Yes! Yes! This was it! Dewey Balfa, D.L. Menard, Boozoo Chavis, Harry LeFleur, Wayne Toups, Queen Ida, Savoy-Doucet Cajun Band. The perfect start to the New Year. Following my bad experience with the Castagnari, I had discovered that the only way to achieve the true Louisiana sound was to obtain a true Louisiana accordion. The Aly Bain programme inspired me to contact Marc Savoy, an acknowledged master of Cajun music and maker of one of the finest instruments money can buy, the Acadian accordion. Armed only with the knowledge that he lived somewhere in Eunice, Louisiana, I wrote to Marc requesting information on his accordions. Some weeks passed before I received a reply from the man himself listing details of all the available options on keys, tuning, bellows, woods, colours, etc. There then followed a lengthy process of exchanging letters while I tried to work out what I needed to get that "true Louisiana sound". It took so long because every time I wrote to Marc he would only answer about half of my questions – I never did work out why.

Pete on stage with his two Cajun Accordions

Once I had sorted out all the options, an order was placed and my handmade accordion was ready for delivery in about four months. I then contacted Federal Express who guaranteed next day delivery to anywhere in the world. I questioned this, explaining that Eunice was in the backwaters of Louisiana and surely next day service was pushing it a bit. However, I was assured that this would be no problem. "By the way", Federal Express asked, "where do you require delivery to?". Ipswich, I replied. "Ah, that will take an extra day to get it down from Norwich". It appears that Ipswich is the backwater, and not Louisiana! As it turned out the accordion was in customs for over a week because they didn’t know what it was or how much duty to charge.

In the summer of 1990 I had half-planned to go to Louisiana to hear Cajun music as it should be played. Luckily I was able to include this as part of my honeymoon trip to the USA. After jetting in to New Orleans and hearing some "tourist Cajun" in Bourbon Street, we headed west towards the Louisiana plains around Lafayette, Eunice, Opelousas and Mamou.

Cajun music really comes to life at the weekends and each Saturday morning from nine o’clock there is a live radio broadcast from Fred’s Lounge, a bar in Mamou. From the outside it looks like a block-built garage with small glass brick windows – it also looks like this from the inside! But the atmosphere is electric. It is cramped, hot, noisy and flowing with beer. The live Cajun band is supplemented by adverts for local retailers and a contest to determine who has travelled the furthest to get there. The prize is three jars of locally prepared hot Tabasco pickles. Come the time of the contest I received a big cheer when I said that I was from Ipswich, England. I got an even bigger cheer when I said that I was on my honeymoon. The place erupted when, asked by the show’s host where my wife was, I replied "she’s asleep in Opelousas"! The pickles went to a girl from Paris.

Also on Saturdays there is another live radio show – the Rendez-Vous des Cajuns – broadcast from the Liberty Theatre in Eunice. Starting at 6pm, the show lasts for about two hours and consists of two top bands, a Cajun comedian telling jokes in French and the "Living Recipe Corner". When we were there Madam A-Too-Fay explained how to prepare a traditional Cajun gumbo. And all this entertainment only costs one dollar! It is such a popular show with the locals that the motel receptionist tried to contact the Mayor of Eunice in order to save us some seats. As it happened he was out of town, but it still makes a good story.

On the Friday and Saturday nights we went to Mulate’s Cajun Restaurant in Breaux Bridge near Lafayette. This is a popular place with tourists and locals alike because it puts on some really top name Cajun bands. Again we were advised to book and the manager said that, as we had travelled all the way from England, he would reserve us a table right next to the band - unfortunately it was behind them and there was a wall in the way! We decided to find our own table to enjoy the playing of Octa Clarke one night and Dewey Balfa the next.

Any trip to Louisiana would not be complete without a visit to Floyd’s Record Shop in Ville Platte. There are racks and racks of Cajun and Zydeco recordings, all at low American prices. Apart from the records I couldn’t resist buying a Cajun rubboard or "vests frottoir" – the Cajun equivalent of a washboard, as mentioned earlier. The trouble is the only time I get to play it is to accompany Irish music. This brings me neatly round to introducing our band, Grand Mamou.

Back in 1990 I was invited to join a scratch band to play at the "Children in Need 26 Hour Barn Dance" at Leiston in Suffolk. The band, known as "Herbal Remedies", played a mixture of music including a few rudimentary Cajun tunes. After going down surprisingly well at Leiston we stayed together and played for a number of local barn dances and the 1992 Felixstowe Folk Festival. Following the demise of the band in the spring of 1992, the nucleus of what was to become Grand Mamou was formed and the long search began for a good fiddle player. It should be noted that the band was originally known as Mamou, but at Sidmouth Folk Festival some years ago I came across a CD by the Mamou Cajun Band. No problem I thought, the chances of a local Ipswich band meeting up with a proper Louisiana band was highly unlikely to say the least. That was until we supported R. Cajun and the Zydeco Brothers at the 1994 Saffron Walden Folk Festival. Apparently they were then off to tour with the Mamou Cajun Band – who were now closer than we could ever have imagined! Hence the "Grand" in Grand Mamou, which also happens to be the name of a good Cajun waltz.

Grand Mamou is a four piece band from Ipswich comprising of Chris Holifield (bass, guitars, mandolin, mandola, bouzouki, whistles, percussion and vocals), John Tomlinson (guitar, bass, drums, shaky egg, percussion and vocals), Vicky Moss (fiddles) and Pete Rout (Cajun accordions, melodeons, drums, percussion and rubboard). Together we play a mixture of Irish, English, European and cajun music, plus some original compositions written by the band. This range of music provides us with the flexibility to play for traditional barn dances with a caller, for Cajun dances and workshops, or a combination of the two.

For Cajun dances and workshops, such as those held at Felixstowe, Saffron Walden, Walton, Snape and Ely Folk Festivals, we were joined by Wendy Pearce and Carey Powell. Wendy and Carey are excellent dancers who have a reputation for their enthusiasm and ability to teach Cajun dancing to beginners and experts alike. They have everyone two-stepping in no time at all and, once you’ve learnt a few basic moves, you can do your own thing to our Cajun tunes. For local barn dances the band provides their "Cajun dancing in 10 minutes" lessons which are quite effective at getting people up on the dance floor to music they may not have heard before.

Back in 1993 we produced our first tape album called "The Road to Rouen" which contained eleven tracks, including five Cajun numbers. We’ve just completed our second album, this time on CD and entitled "Close to the Hedge" , which has a bumper fifteen tracks including four Cajun two-steps and a Cajun waltz.

So who are the Cajuns? The Cajun people are mostly the descendants of religious exiles who emigrated from France in the early 1600’s to what is now known as Nova Scotia. The original name for this part of Canada was Acadia – hence the term Cajun, a corruption of "Acadian". The Cajuns were expelled by the British in 1755 and most of them moved south to the bayous and prairies of Louisiana.

There are basically two types of Cajun tune, the very upbeat two-step (in 2/4 timing) and the waltz (in 3/4). In its simplest form the two-step is a fairly basic couple dance with a characteristic "limping" step, but in recent years the moves performed by Cajun dancers have become increasingly complex, not unlike a 1950’s jive. The waltz is often played to give the dancers time to recover between the more energetic two-steps.

Early Cajun music was dominated by the fiddle. It was only in the late 1800’s that the Cajun accordion was introduced, its loudness being ideally suited for dancing t’s that the Cajun accordion was introduced, its loudness being ideally suited for dancing.

with great emphasise being placed on strong staccato rhythms, jumping between octaves, simple cords and the use of grace notes or embellishments. The Cajun accordion is a single row instrument, normally with four stops and 10 keys. They are usually tuned to the key of C or D, but as Cajun music is modal a tune played on a D accordion will often be played in the key of A, and on a C instrument in the key of G. The reeds of the accordion can also be tuned to provide varying degrees of harmonics or discord, known as "wet" or "dry" tuning. The fiddle is tuned as normal (GDAE) for playing with a D accordion, but is tuned down a whole tone (FCGD) when playing with a one in C.

A traditional Cajun band would consist of an accordion, one or two fiddles, a guitar for rhythm hythmitional Cajun band would consist of an accordion, one or two fiddles, a guitar for rhythm and a triangle. Such bands would often play for house dances, where all the furniture would be removed from a room and everyone would congregate and let their hari down at the end of a hard working week. Dances would also be held in local halls which often had a room at the back where mothers would place their sleeping children. This gave rise to the term fais do-do ("go to sleep") used to describe such dances.

Cajun music was in danger of being lost until revitalised by an accordion player called Iry Lejeune in the late 1940’s. along with others including Lawrence Walker, Nathan Abshire and Joe Falcon, his influence is still seen in Cajun accordion playing today.