In some people’s eyes, Horace Trahan is the Great White Hope Gone Bad. At Trahan’s debut, Cajun music fans had never heard 50-year-old classics sung with such power and grace. Especially from an accordionist who had just graduated from high school.

In the liner notes of Trahan’s heralded debut CD, Ossun Blues, Barry Jean Ancelet describes how Trahan was discovered at the “Rendezvous des Cajuns,” the weekly live radio show at the Liberty Theater in Eunice. “It was to be his first public performance, one song, sitting in a chair on stage all alone with only his accordion,” writes Ancelet. “He played and sang Iry’s ‘Viens me chercher,’ a song that he learned from Felix [Richard].

“The power and clarity of his performance brought tears to eyes of many in the audience and several backstage. The crowd rose in a spontaneous standing ovation as he ended the song, yet no one was more moved than Horace. It was one of those magic moments filled with beauty and hope.”

Five years later, instead of knocking them dead, Trahan has the purists keeling over. Trahan has expanded his talented wings, or in this case, fingers, into zydeco, the sound of southwest Louisiana’s black Creoles. The backlash of a white Cajun playing black music has thrown Trahan for a loop. This native son is learning the cultural hype of joie de vivre and “Laissez les bon temps rouler” often ring hollow.

“People have been telling me how I let them down,” said Trahan, who is now 24. “They tell me I disappointed them because I’m playing zydeco. I say music is for everybody. One person told me my band would never work because it had blacks and whites together.

“Just last weekend, I went to the CFMA awards and a guy told me he heard I was getting married. He said, ‘I heard she was short and black.’ When I go out, I dance with everybody—white, black, whoever. But I could tell where he was going. He was just trying to be ugly.”

Trahan and The New Ossun Express address the ugliness in his latest CD, Get On Board, on Zydeco Hound Records, a label of the Acadiana Sounds Recording Studio of Eunice. The disc is an entertaining mix of traditional zydeco and French music.

Trahan covers zydeco standards like Boozoo Chavis’ “Talk About Your Baby” and John Delafose’s “One Hour Too Late,” “Find My Woman” and Poor Man Two-Step.” But he hasn’t forgotten about his Cajun roots with renditions of the “Eunice Two-Step,” Iry LeJeune’s “Big Road Waltz” and “Lanse Aux Paille Two Step” by the late Dewey Balfa. In an original song entitled “Don’t Worry About Horace,” Trahan strikes back at critics as he sings:

“I hear them messy people talking, But they can just keep walking. I hear them messy things they saying, But I’m a just keep playing.”

The CD’s breakout hit has been the “High School Breakdown,” a prep football cheer Trahan learned as a bass drummer at Carencro High School. This rap-influenced boogie has been a favorite at Trahan’s dances at El Sid O’s Club in Lafayette and Whiskey River Landing in Henderson.

“When I was playing in the band, I would hit that little song on the bass drum for the Carencro football team,” said Trahan. “The cheerleaders would dance and everybody would start cutting up.

After we started this band, we played it at practice one night for I don’t know how long. We all said we have to put that on the CD. It’s something out of the ordinary that people can just get out on the dance floor and cut up and have fun.”

Before playing in the school band, Trahan was tutored in Cajun music by accordion veteran Felix Richard. Trahan became so committed that he asked his family and friends to speak to him only in French, so he could become fluent in the Cajun language. Trahan admits the switch to zydeco and its more mainstream American influences wasn’t completely easy. But he received help from his drummer Paul Delafosse and bass player Paul “Slim” Washington, who have played with Roy Carrier, John and Geno Delafose and other zydeco groups. “I grew up listening to Clifton Chenier and I always did like it,” said Trahan. “But I never did play it because I knew in the dance halls where we played, it wouldn’t go over well. I would listen to zydeco, but there’s a difference between listening and playing it. Paul and Slim have years of experience and they told me ‘Horace, the best way to do it is go out to the clubs and just sit there and listen.’ It didn’t matter if I danced or not, just listen. Sometimes, that’s the best way to learn.”

Just as Trahan was dealing with the racist backlash for adopting zydeco, he was thrown for another loop. His CD was originally released as Horace Trahan and the Louisiana Express. But just weeks after publication, Fred Charlie, owner of Acadiana Sounds, learned the band’s name was the registered trademark of a group from Lake Charles. The group was renamed after Ossun, the rural community near Lafayette where Trahan grew up. Fans of Trahan’s first CD pressing now have a collector’s item. “We had to redo the front and the back of the CD with the new name—The New Ossun Express,” said Fred Charlie. “It didn’t cost a whole lot because I’m able to do a lot of the stuff here in my studio. I was happy to accommodate Horace and the other band. I didn’t want to leave a bad taste in anybody’s mouth.”

Charlie, who also writes and sings Cajun French music, has been annoyed by the adverse reaction to Trahan’s new mix of music. “Horace is trying to broaden his talents,” said Charlie. “He’s already got the talent. He’s just trying to make the best of it.

“People have to understand that these musicians have to live. When they go on the road, they don’t want to have to eat bologna sandwiches all the time. They have to play what the crowd likes. They’ve got to move. They can’t stay in the same place all the time.” As for the “messy people,” Trahan refuses to let them sour his notes. He says they’ve only pushed him to be more open to all kinds of music.

“When people tell me I can’t do something, I dig in even deeper,” said Trahan. “I’m still crawling right now, but I’m not going to stop. Music is music and people are people. I could have easily been born a Japanese woman. You just have to take what the good Lord gave you and go with it. We’re all dying, whether you’re black, white, Cajun, Creole or the king of the CFMA. What matters in the end is how you treat people.”

Contact Herman Fuselier by email at [email protected]. or visit his Bayou Boogie page at www.bayoubeat.com.