I think we all agreed that the guitar on Madame Bosso is an electric lead guitar, not a steel guitar or dobro.
According to Ann Savoy's book, Atlas Fruge was the first Cajun to play steel guitar in a Cajun band, and that must have been in the late 1930s with J.B. Fusilier's band, J.B. and the Merrymakers. I really do not know if that actually pre-dates Papa Cairo (Julius Lamperez) with Happy Fats' band in the late 30s.
As for who played the dobro or steel first, you can see a picture of Cleoma Breaux Falcon playing a resonator guitar. I wouldn't doubt that she played resonator guitar on the very first commercial Cajun recordings of Lafayette and Waltz that Carried Me to My Grave in 1928. Hackberry Ramblers used some kind of resonator guitar or slide guitar on their recordings in the mid-30s.
It's a good topic but I don't know if anyone has published an answer to the question. Ryan Brasseaux would be the person to ask, I guess.
Yes, what I meant was, did Shirley Bergeron, or anyone else, use that style - picking the tune on an electric guitar, rather than playing slide style, on any other records? I can't think of any, but it sounds really good.
I've no doubt Cleoma Breaux and others played resonater guitar, but I meant, again, with a slide and open tuning, either laid flat, dobro style, or held like a conventional guitar.
I realize, now, that I didn't make myself clear in my original post. When I said 'steel guitar', I wasn't thinking about resonator steels. I meant the electric lap steel, the sound of which I associate with the sixties, and maybe the fifties? But were people playing that open tuning, slide style, with pre-electric guitars ( resonators and dobros? ), before WW2? (I'm a bit foggy about when pickups on solid guitars came out - Leo Fender? Late forties? )
Thanks for the tip re. Anne Savoys book. I'll look it out.
As for the kind of electric guitar picking on Madame Bosso, I cannot think of it on many records before the 1960s. The Musical Four Plus One of Lake Charles used an electric guitar lead on Traîn la Ezy some time in the 50s. It's on Arhoolie's cd Cajun Honky Tonk. And Harrison (Harry) Fontenot's singles on Swallow from the 1960s had this kind of electric guitar.
As for early slide or steel or dobro, Happy Fats' band had someone playing with some kind of guitar with a slide on Morse One Step in the mid-1930s:
Neal, you never fail to amaze me with your encyclopaedic knowledge of those old recordings. Thanks for all the info.
On reading up, I find that Rickenbacker pioneered electro-magnetic pickups with their Frying Pan lap steel in 1931, so any or all of those old recordings could feature electric OR non-electric steel.
The April 2011 Dewey Balfa Cajun & Creole Heritage Week
