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