Philip Gould
The Acadiana Center for the Arts' purchase of the Lafayette Hardware Store is the first step on the journey to a Louisiana Music Museum.
In November, one of Lafayette’s oldest bastions of the Cajun dancehall culture very suddenly and heartbreakingly shut its doors after fifty years of “two steppin’, toe tappin’, taste temptin’”. The loss of Randol’s—one of Louisiana’s rare remaining sacred spaces for consistent live local performances of indigenous music—pushes these cultures just one more step towards being something we once had, something we once did, long ago.
The culture needs to be enshrined, emphasized Samuel Oliver, the Executive Director of the Acadiana Center for the Arts (ACA). “You see more and more of these dancehalls closing,” he said. “We need to find a way to keep the music culture going, without relying so much on private businesses, when there is no guarantee that they’ll always be here.”
Six months ago, when the circa-1890 Lafayette Hardware Store went on the market, Oliver said the stars seemed to align for a long-held dream in Lafayette to finally come to fruition: The Louisiana Music Museum. “It’s been talked about for a long time,” he said, “as something that would be amazing for Lafayette to host in particular, a missing piece in the tourism puzzle—as well as what is missing in terms of continuing to be proud of our real, lasting, global impact on the world through music.”
In December, the ACA announced that it had signed a contract to purchase the historic building, which is situated adjacent to the organization’s current headquarters and has a history of live performances. It was even home to The Artists’ Alliance, a precursor to the current ACA. “Our board is very excited about the idea of the museum, and committed to making it happen,” said Oliver, who noted that the board is currently forming a dedicated committee for the project.
Once the sale officially closes, the focus will shift to securing funding for the building’s renovation, which Oliver estimates will come with a $3.5 million price tag. To build on a base of federal and state funding, Oliver hopes to attract private donors from the Louisiana residents for whom the museum is being designed. “I want the people who live here to take ownership of it,” he said. “Because it’s going to be a project for everybody.”
Plans for the museum include a permanent core exhibition that tells the story of Louisiana music and musicians “from a distinctly Acadiana Cajun and Creole perspective,” said Oliver. “But the scope is intended to be all of Louisiana, which will obviously be a huge challenge.”
Partnering closely with the Center for Louisiana Studies at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette, which will serve as an expert advisor on the project, the ACA will work to determine: (1) What are the key stories we want to tell about this history? (2) Whose are the voices that need to tell these stories? And, (3) What are the objects and artifacts that are central to these stories? “We’ll identify the photographs that really bring together all the pieces, figure out who has Dewey Balfa’s fiddles, you know?” Oliver said, “And then bring those objects together in a way that, from that rigorous perspective, tells the story of Louisiana’s music.”
The heart of the museum, though, will be its dancehall, which Oliver envisions hosting brunch and morning dances every Saturday and Sunday. “What’s so great about Louisiana music is that it takes place in these casual spaces, these community spaces,” he said. “The dance hall, the festival. We know that the crowd in front of a stage is our living room. And I think it is so important that the music be presented in that context, too.”
