In 1946, Harry Choates, a Cajun fiddle virtuoso, changed the course
of American musical history when his recording of the so-called
Cajun national anthem "Jole Blon" reached number four on the
national Billboard charts. Cajun music became part of the American
consciousness for the first time thanks to the unprecedented
success of this issue, as the French tune crossed cultural, ethnic,
racial, and socio-economic boundaries. Country music stars Moon
Mullican, Roy Acuff, Bob Wills, and Hank Snow rushed into the
studio to record their own interpretations of the waltz-followed
years later by Waylon Jennings and Bruce Springsteen. The
cross-cultural musical legacy of this plaintive waltz also paved
the way for Hank Williams Sr.'s Cajun-influenced hit "Jamabalaya."
Choates' "Jole Blon" represents the culmination of a centuries-old
dialogue between the Cajun community and the rest of America.
Joining into this dialogue is the most thoroughly researched and
broadly conceived history of Cajun music yet published, Cajun
Breakdown. Furthermore, the book examines the social and cultural
roots of Cajun music's development through 1950 by raising broad
questions about the ethnic experience in America and nature of
indigenous American music. Since its inception, the Cajun community
constantly refashioned influences from the American musical
landscape despite the pressures of marginalization, denigration,
and poverty. European and North American French songs, minstrel
tunes, blues, jazz, hillbilly, Tin Pan Alley melodies, and western
swing all became part of the Cajun musical equation. The idiom's
synthetic nature suggests an extensive and intensive dialogue with
popular culture, extinguishing the myth that Cajuns were an
isolated folk group astray in the American South. Ryan Andre
Brasseaux's work constitutes a bold and innovative exploration of a
forgotten chapter in America's musical odyssey.
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