Various Artists, Women’s Home Music (Louisiana Crossroads)


“Cajun Music is more than just two-steps and waltzes,” Michael Doucet has always contended. One of the cultural facets the BeauSoleil frontman was implicitly referring to was the centuries-old, a cappella French ballads that have been found in various North American Francophone domains like Quebec, Canada’s Maritime Provinces, Missouri’s Old Mines District and South Louisiana. Folklorists have recorded women singing ballads in the home since the ’30s, but that music hasn’t been widely appreciated yet by the average connoisseur of Cajun dancehall music. At the same time, these ballads have provided a fountain of inspiration for several of today’s topnotch Cajun aggregations that have retooled various chestnuts into full band arrangements.

The biggest selling CD of this year’s Festivals Acadiens, Louisiana Folk Roots’ Women’s Home Music now brings this cultural treasure trove to a broader public awareness. The bulk of this 45-track, two-disc set was culled from field recordings conducted by ULL’s Dr. Barry Ancelet when he recorded Lula Landry, Inez Catalon, Marie Pellerin, Madame Dalbert Aucoin and Odile Falcon in the ’70s. The work of other folklorists, (Harry Oster, William Owens and Ralph Rinzler) is also included, that, along with the extensive liner notes and translated lyrics, provides an in-depth examination of Cajun women’s home music.

Throughout this collection, a lot is revealed about this lesser known idiom. Many tunes hail directly from France and have the same or similar versions in other parts of the French-speaking world. Some like “Un Papier D’épingles” and “Mon Bon Vieux Mari” are fairly well known in Louisiana, a few are rarer, such as “Dessue Le Premier Jour Des Noches” sung by Agnes Bourque in 1973. Since songs were passed orally from generation to generation, incredible memory skills were required, especially for “La Vailliante Catherine” (sung by Alma Barthémémy) that consisted of a mind-boggling 24 verses. It’s impressive to note that a song can travel across the globe and still be relatively intact after centuries.

Yet, regardless of a tune’s origin, a sense of long ago life is obtained through colorful themes of courting, the loss of innocence, marriage and going off to war with the uncertainty of return. Since home music was mostly about entertainment, a folksy sense of humor often prevails. One such example is “La Petite à Mogène Meaux” where a girl twirls so much when dancing, she disappears into thin air. A few more including “La Cravate” are tongue twisters where each verse builds upon the last. Perhaps the most surprising and hilarious of all is Barthémémy singing “Time Changes Everything,” the Bob Wills staple (titled here as “C’était Un Temps / There Was A Time”). As she sings each verse, one can’t help but wonder if she was intentionally trying to reverse engineer the folk process.