Welcome to old and new friends who are interested in discussing Cajun and other diatonic accordions, along with some occasional lagniappe....



CAJUN ACCORDION DISCUSSION GROUP

 

General Forum
Start a New Topic 
Author
Comment
View Entire Thread
Re: La Valse de Platin

Thanks Marc! I forgot about the Joe Falcon version!

Eddie LeJeune does Valse de Samedi au Soir on Cajun Soul, his first CD on Rounder. Pretty sure the Balfa Brothers also do it with that title on a Sonet lp.

The Louisiana French Dictionary edited by Valdman lists Platin as a low lying area with standing water. No entry for Platain. That looks like a misspelling by La Louisianne record company on the Ambrose Thidodeaux song. Not surprising, it's Louisiane with ONE n not two! They don't even spell their label name correctly! No entry for Platine that makes sense to me. The Valdman dictionary talks about a kind of sausage. That's not how the word was used where I am from. Maybe it's a word in Vermilion parish reserved for a poor draining area of a rice field as I was mentioning earlier. Next time I talk with my farmer I will ask him.

Re: La Valse de Platin

In my area, platin meant a low spot, usually I heard it used for a slight depression in a field. But like a lot of things, we used it as a place name. "where's the party at?" "mais, it's at the platin, couillon".

Re: La Valse de Platin

neal

Not surprising, it's Louisiane with ONE n not two! They don't even spell their label name correctly!

Maybe we could give them the benefit of the doubt and think they really intended to choose among the many possible old spellings before it became fixed: Louisianne, Louysiane, Loüisiane, Louisiaene, Louizianne, L'Alouisianne, L'Allouisiane...

http://www.persee.fr/web/revues/home/prescript/article/jsa_0037-9174_1929_num_21_1_3657

Re: La Valse de Platin

Also, Bayou Blanc by Pee Wee Broussard.

Re: La Valse de Platin

Ah oui !!! Merci Bryan, je ne connaissais pas.

Marc.

Re: La Valde de Platin

Wow... such a great discussion that my take on the song has caused. I'll be busy for some time tracking down all the songs of which I've heard discussed.

I just listened to "Le Nuit Samedi" by Joe Falcon for the first time. Wow... that's what I was doing - sort of..

Thanks to all.

John in Oregon

Re: La Valde de Platin

Well, I orignally asked John the question about "La Valse de Platin" quite innocently. Since then, there have been some great responses, and I have learned something - not sure what it all means; but it is interesting.

First, I got the reference to other recordings from an index of Cajun songs prepared by Nancy Weston. It turns out that all of the references she had about "La Valse de Platain" were misspelled in the book. I have listened to most of the recordings that she gave plus the one by Happy, Doc and the Boys that Neal identified; and all of them actually say "Platin."

And I do agree with Neal that all of the versions sound a lot like Dennis McGee's Chere Bebe Creole, although the notes to the recordings never mention Dennis.

Then I went back to Ambrose Thibodeaux's version, and it seems to have nothing to do with the other versions. This time, I kept listening to the Ambrose LP, and lo and behold, a couple of tunes later, another tune sounds a lot like the other recordings of La Valse de Platin, except that the listed title is "Merry Widow Waltz." Maybe the tune on Ambrose's LP is the one that is mislabelled.

Finally, during the course of my "investigation," I listened to Horace Horace Trahan's version on his Ossun Blues CD (One of the best Cajun recordings ever!) and underneath the French title (in very small letters) is the English title - Bottom Land Waltz. Also, the implication, with Horace's name right afterward' is that he wrote the song - maybe the lyrics.

Anyway, John's and Maz's accordion versions are obviously consistent with all of the other versions of "La Valse de Platin," not Ambrose's version. Both of the accordion tunes are very good.

Jack Bond



Jamey Hall's most excellent Cajun Accordion Music Theory

Brett's all new Cajun Accordion Music Theory for all keys!

LFR1.gif - 1092 Bytes The April 2011 Dewey Balfa Cajun & Creole Heritage Week

augusta.gif - 6841 Bytes

Listen to Some GREAT Music While You Surf the Net!!
The BEST Radio Station on the Planet!