Cajun swing fiddler Hadley J. Castille passed away on Thursday, October 25, 2012 at an Opelousas nursing home due to an inoperable brain tumor. Services were held on Wednesday, October 31, 2012.
Hadley Castille, 1933-2012 (Courtesy LouisianaFolkRoots.org)
During Castille’s eight-decade music career, he was considered the living incarnation of Harry Choates with a style “that’s the closest thing to Harry Choates we’ll ever see in our lifetime,” says Dennis Stroughmatt, a fiddler himself from Albion, Illinois, who often visited and learned from the master for a week at a time. Stroughmatt goes on to say that Castille played great up until the end. Interestingly, the 79-year-old fiddler never let his musical ability plateau or stagnate. “He was constantly developing his style,” says son Blake. “He could play all the fast notes but as time went on, his playing became more sophisticated.”
Castille was born on March 3, 1933 to a sharecropping family in the small community of Pecaniere, Louisiana. His family was also a musical one; his father Francois played the accordion and uncle Cyprien Castille was a left-handed fiddler who taught his nephew the stringed instrument. When Castille first heard Harry Choates’ national hit “Jolie Blond” on a jukebox, “That was it!” Castille once said and began wood shedding on the Choates style. In the early ’50s, Castille enlisted in the army and was stationed at Fort Hood in Killeen, Texas. There he played in a western swing band where he honed his chops. He returned to St. Landry Parrish and joined his brother Donne’ Dieu in a plumbing, air conditioning and heating business in Opelousas. In 1957, he married Earline Shay of Port Barre, Louisiana and the couple had three children, Blake, Joey and Tanya.
Though he played locally around Acadiana, it wasn’t until 1979 when an appearance at a Saskatchewan festival propelled Castille’s career further. Representatives from Festival du Voyager were so struck by his engaging performance that they invited him to the Manitoba festival, starting a tradition that would occur for the next 18 years. Castille’s reputation as a Cajun swing fiddler and raconteur really took off, leading to appearances at the Winnipeg Folk Festival and other prestigious Canadian festivals.
Along with son Blake on guitar and vocals, and varying incarnations of his Sharecroppers band, Castille released five LPs and five CDs and contributed to the soundtrack of A Perfect World. In 1992, the Cajun French Music Association awarded Castille its Heritage award for his autobiographical song “200 Lines: I Must Not Speak French,” an experience that many Cajuns could relate to — the tune told the account of being punished as a child for speaking French on school grounds, as the state of Louisiana, and the United States, didn’t allow students to speak the language. Castille and Blake were CFMA Heritage award recipients in 1996 with their co-written original “The Old Sharecropper’s House (La Vieille Maison d’Engager).” In 2002, Castille notched his last CFMA honor, the Excellence Award, as a fiddler. Castille, Zachary Richard and Action Acadian were also instrumental in introducing French immersion classes in St. Landry Parish schools.
In the last dozen years, Castille focused on mentoring granddaughter Sarah Jayde to carry on his style, thereby continuing the family lineage of fiddlers. In 2008, Hadley and his Sharecroppers backed up Sarah on her delightful debut Cajun and Texas Swing, an aptly titled collection of tunes that showcased her vocal talents as well as her keen fiddling ability. At the time of his death, Castille had just begun work on a double disc, with disc one being Sharecropper originals and disc two featuring instrumental fiddle tunes. When Castille fell sick in August, Blake thought they could record him playing the fiddle tunes at home.
“But he just went too fast.”
