La Musique Francaise de Louisiane

The origins of Louisiana's French music genres: Cajun, zydeco, and swamp pop

January 29, 2024 3:30 PM

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Though the word “Cajun” has come to eclipse most people’s understanding of Louisiana’s French culture, and especially its music—the truth is that in those early days that defined these genres, the Acadian refugees were not alone on the Southwest prairies. And the musical traditions that emerged so prominently from that French-speaking region bore the influence of the Acadians, yes, but also the French, the Spanish, and the Germans. The Native peoples who lived on those prairies for centuries before any of those Europeans arrived—they contributed their piece, too. And then, of course, there were the people of African descent—diverse in their own right: the enslaved people coming straight from West Africa, those coming from Haiti before and after the revolution, and free people of color. Cajun music, Zydeco, and Swamp Pop—defined by their Francophone origins—are distinctly American music in that they exist as a result of all of these rural, usually working-class cultures interacting with one another on the prairie.

Much of the foundational knowledge of Louisiana’s French vernacular music traditions depends on the field recordings collected by John and Alan Lomax in 1934 for the Library of Congress. Concentrating on music already deemed “old” by that time, the Lomaxes captured some of the “purest” precursors of Louisiana’s French music genres, just as the onset of popular culture started to change them forever. These included traditional French ballads and folksongs from Canada and mainland Europe, jurés (a Black Creole style of singing without instrumental accompaniment), waltzes and two steps, and some of the first American fiddle music ever recorded.

At that point in the early 20th century, the influences of all these distinct musical expressions, along with others, were already coalescing into early versions of what we today define as Cajun, zydeco, and swamp pop.

Though there were indeed important distinctions between the music played by white Cajuns (which by the 19th century came to encompass most French-speaking Caucasians, of varying backgrounds) and the music played by Black Creoles of this time, to the untrained ear they were relatively subtle, each tradition borrowing and trading influences from the other. The two communities lived and worked side by side, interacting often, if still maintaining a degree of hierarchical, prejudicial separation. At the time, the music was defined by both French-speaking groups as musique Française—distinguished more from English-language, or “American,” music in the region than by the race of the person performing it. This is despite violently-upheld segregation laws, which were enacted most fervently in live music settings like dancehalls.

The Classic Period of Louisiana French Music

In the 1920s, the advent of recording technology and, subsequently, the recording industry, affected Louisiana French music in three significant ways. First, it preserved the orally-transmitted music in time, for the first time in history, for future generations. Second, it created a standardization that the genre hadn’t operated by before. The free-flowing intricacies of improvisation and interpretation performers once brought to the music, allowing it to organically evolve from house to house and generation to generation, was subsumed by the authority of the recorded version. There became a “right way” to do it. This also resulted in a more concrete repertoire, the recorded songs quickly becoming the ones everyone knew and loved best. And finally, the recording industry introduced Louisiana French music to the outside world, creating the first “famous” Cajun musicians and recording artists.

This earliest period of recorded Louisiana French Music is known as its “classic period,” establishing the foundations of the music as we recognize it today. The first-ever recording of Louisiana French music was by Columbia in 1928, of guitarist Cléoma Breaux and accordionist Joe Falcon performing “Allons à Lafayette”. Other early recording artists from this period included Angelas LeJeuene, Mayeus Lafleur with Leo Soileau, Lawrence and Elton Walker, and the Breaux Brothers (brothers of Cléoma). The first Black Creole recording artists were fiddler Douglas Bellard and accordionist Kirby Riley, whose “La Valse La Prison” (recorded by Vocalion in 1929) became a classic.

The most influential figures of this era, though, were Cajun fiddler Dennis McGee and Black Creole accordionist Amédé Ardoin. The duo’s performances together were legendary across the region despite the segregationist attitudes of the time. A fiddle prodigy, McGee’s style of playing was both archaic and representative of the range available to players within the genre. He was a master of the old twin fiddle tradition, which he usually performed with his brother-in-law Sady Courville, as well as the stylistic evolutions brought about by the accordion—where he and Ardoin made history. Ardoin’s bluesy, highly-syncopated style of accordion playing set the standard that Cajun and zydeco performers would continue to emulate for over a century. He would come to be considered the father of both Cajun and zydeco music, his entire recorded repertoire becoming foundational to the genre for generations to come.

From the 1930s onward, Louisiana French music began to take on the qualities of the more popular genres its players were encountering with the rise of Americanization. Here is when we begin to see a more defined split between "Cajun" music and the antecedents of what would be come zydeco, as white Cajuns generally became influenced by western swing and country, while Black Creoles dove into the rising world of R&B.

Follow the story of the evolutions of Cajun music throughout the twentieth century in The History of Cajun Music, 1930s to Today, the rise of zydeco in The World of Louisiana Zydeco, and the ultimate rise of swamp pop in Swamp Pop Should Go On Forever.

Learn more about the history of the instrumentation in Louisiana French genres, as well as the historical venues the music was played in, here:

The Instruments of Cajun, Zydeco, and Swamp Pop Music

Let's Go Dancin': The Evolution of Louisiana French Music Venues

The Classic Period of Louisiana French Music

Recommended Reading/Resource List:

Related

Swamp Pop Should Go On Forever

The History of Cajun Music, 1930s to Today

The World of Louisiana Zydeco

A New Stage for Roots Music