Women hold a twisted history in Cajun music. Dozens of male singers have been unable to live without “Jolie Blonde,” “Madeleine,” “Jolie Catin,” “Chere Alice,” “Ma Negresse,” “Chere Tout-Toute,” “Jolie Bassette” and “Rebecca Ann,” sad, but irresistible beauties portrayed in song as wild, wicked, child-abandoning heartbreakers.
Ironically, a woman, Cleoma Breaux, playing guitar behind her accordionist husband, Joe Falcon, recorded Cajun music’s first commercial song, “Allons a Lafayette,” in 1928. Cleoma didn’t sing on the song. But when she sang on others, the words had been clearly written from a man’s point of view. Since 1989, the Cajun French Music Association has given Female Vocalist of the Year honors at its Le Cajun ceremonies. Yet a count of the CFMA Cajun Music Hall of Fame inductees shows 41 white men, one black man and zero women.
Helen Boudreaux, a singer, songwriter, author and truck driver, is tired of waiting for lasting recognition. She took matters into her own hands and unveiled the Cajun Lady Musicians Wall of Fame January 20 at the new Atchafalaya Club, an addition to the renown Pat’s Riverside Restaurant. The Atchafalaya Club is a gorgeous, humongous dancehall so big that if enough patrons spill their Scotch-On-The-Rocks, the IceGators hockey team could hold late-night practices. Order a frozen margarita at one end of the bar and it’s lemon-lime Kool Aid by the time you hike to the other end.
Visitors are greeted by the new Wall of Fame, 11 8 x 10, framed photographs of female musicians, as soon as they enter the club’s front door. Boudreaux says all the ladies want is a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T. “There’s so many men musicians out there, they don’t notice we’re playing music also,” said Boudreaux, who has penned her biography Cajun Survivor. “We’re important because we’ve made our contributions. We’re like roses in a bush of thorns.
“I want people to be aware. Like Nancy (Tabb Marcantel), such a beautiful voice and I’ve been hearing her for years. She’s had all these beautiful albums and nobody notices. We have to toot our own horn. Nobody is tooting it for us.” Charter Wall of Fame inductees include Boudreaux, Marcantel, Eva Touchet, Dottie Manuel, Rita Lejeune, Debbie Theriot, Becky Richard, Thelma Daigle, Mary Lynn Allemand, Jean Murphy Norman, Yvonne Smith and Sheryl Cormier. Boudreaux says the honorees were not selected by nominations or ballots—but Helen Boudreaux. “People asked me how I selected these women, do you have a committee?,” said Boudreaux. “I’m a one-person committee. Nobody’s thinking like I am. Nobody knows what’s in my heart. They ask how I selected these women. I’ve been hearing them on the radio for years and nobody noticed them.”
One of the honorees, Nancy Tabb Marcantel, has been on the radio since 1974. That’s when “Ma Louisiane,” Marcantel’s French version of John Denver’s “Take Me Home Country Roads,” became a smash hit. Marcantel became an opening act for Conway Twitty, Marty Robbins and Jerry Lee Lewis. “That was the first time a female Cajun vocalist had made it to mainstream radio,” said Marcantel, who has recorded ten albums. “It was a contemporary song, translated into French and I made it about Louisiana. Before that, the female Cajun vocalists weren’t recognized as bonafide musicians. I think that gave us a start and I think it’s a wonderful thing Helen Boudreaux has done—to recognize the ladies who have spent their lives being token musicians.”
Like Marcantel, Jean Murphy Norman of Church Point has taken a fresh approach to Cajun music. Norman has been successful translating gospel standards, such as “The Old Rugged Cross,” into French. Norman is pleased to see a change in attitude towards female Cajun musicians. “People used to think of women as trashy if they played music,” said Norman. “Women play and sing because they like to and singing tells a story from the heart. It’s better now than it used to be.” Congratulations to all the women on the Cajun Lady Musicians Wall of Fame. Others are bound to follow Helen Boudreaux’s lead in honoring this ignored group. Hats off to Boudreaux for having the courage to recognize Cajun ladies as much more than Jolie Blondes.
CALVIN CARRIERE, R.I.P.
In other news, the waning ranks of black Creole fiddlers shrank even more recently with the death of Calvin Carriere of Lawtell. Carriere, 80, longtime fiddler with the Lawtell Playboys and accordionist Goldman Thibodeaux, died at 8 a.m. March 3 at Opelousas General Hospital after a battle with lung cancer. Carriere’s passing only leaves Carlton Frank (great uncle of zydeco sensation Keith Frank), Ed Poullard (of Jesse Lege’s Cajun Band), Morris Ardoin (son of legendary accordionist Bois Sec Ardoin) and D’Jalma Garnier of Filé as surviving Creole fiddlers.
Most people who heard the scattered media reports of Carriere’s death probably had no idea who he was. But without Carriere and other Creole pioneers, such as Amede Ardoin and Canray Fontenot, there would be no zydeco and Cajun music would have much less soul. The Carriere family of St. Landry Parish, which includes Roy and Chubby Carrier, are among the founding families of Creole music. Their music goes back to the days of “La La,” the rural, Creole house parties before World War II. Furniture was moved out of the living room and neighbors danced to the accordion, fiddle and washboard. (In the 1950s, Clifton Chenier and others combined this raw, country style with slick, urban blues to create zydeco).
Calvin was the son of Eraste Carriere and the nephew of Joseph “Bébé” Carriere, an popular accordion-fiddle duo known as the Carriere Brothers. The pair played French waltzes and two-steps, blues and forgotten dances like the mazurka, a jig that originated in central Europe. Bébé passed his fiddling legacy to his nephew Calvin. In 1966, when Bébé and Eraste retired from playing dances, Calvin teamed with Delton Broussard to form the Lawtell Playboys. (Many of Broussard’s children and grandchildren are bandleaders with Zydeco Force, Lil Pookie and other groups). The Lawtell Playboys were popular attractions in the 1970s, playing at dancehalls throughout the region. They were featured on one side of a 1976 album entitled La La: Louisiana Black French Music on Maison de Soul. The group also had selections on J’etais Au Bal: Music of French Louisiana (Swallow, 1974) and Zodico: Louisiana Creole Music (Rounder, 1987).
As zydeco adopted more of an R&B and rap edge in the 1980s and ’90s, Creole musicians like Calvin Carriere and the Lawtell Playboys fell out of favor. Their old-time sound became too white for blacks and too bluesy for Cajuns. Ironically, the best place to hear these Louisiana originals was outside Louisiana. Broussard and Carriere annually taught accordion and fiddle classes at Cajun-Creole Week, sponsored by the Augusta Heritage Center at Davis and Elkins College in Elkins, West Virginia.
In 2000, Shamus and Reese Fuller of louisianaradio.com Records had the vision to preserve these neglected sounds before they were completely lost. Calvin Carriere and his Lawtell neighbor and accordionist Goldman Thibodeaux recorded a CD entitled Les Miseres Dan Le Coeur (Miseries of the Heart). As a result, Carriere and Thibodeaux received radio airplay, made television appearances and played at area festivals. Thankfully, Calvin Carriere received some flowers while he was still living. Remember him in your prayers, but say a prayer for us, too. We’ve lost another link to a past that defines Creole and Cajun people.
Contact Herman Fuselier at [email protected]
