To WF, I will surely be visiting that website you posted "Early Cajun Music" again. It shows a whole lot of information about the origins and comparisons of Cajun songs. But I will always view the information with a skeptical eye and mind.

I once went to hear "Horace Trahan" at the SunSet Lounge in Kaplan back when he only played traditional Cajun music. He played "Chere Tout Tout" and it was an awesome version. When he got done with the song, he made a point of telling all the people there over the microphone, "Don't let anybody tell you that they made that song." "That song was made a long long time ago." "Anybody that tells you they made that song, or they know the man dat made it is lying to you."
I now see the point he was trying to make very clearly, and we're proving that point right now, right here on the Bravenet. It aint no easy task to find the original creators of these Cajun songs because they borrowed so dam much from each other and other songs. I say borrowed...they also right out stole too, but that's the nature of learning these Cajun tunes on an accordion. You take what you can from others and try to make it your own. Only every now and then do accordion players come up with something that is actually genuinely original due to there only being 10 buttons you can press.
Hell, at the rate we're going, we're liable to find out who the killers were that ran over Amedee Ardoin's neck! We might even eventually find out that Iry Lejeune didn't get hit by a car on accident. Could it have been planned out of jealousy and hate just like the basterds did that attacked Amedee and left him for dead? Hell, all these years have gone by and I know at least one modern day accordion player that don't like Iry Lejeune's style because of what I think is jealousy! And if you haven't guessed it yet, I don't like Steve Riley's nor Marc Savoy's styles or people who try to play like them. But it's not out of jealousy anymore, its from knowing better than I used to.<< That comment ought to light a few fires within the community. LOL, but it's just how I feel.

Yep, proving where a song came from in Cajun music is an exercise in speculating. We can usually show who first recorded it, but whether that person "made" the song is totally up for speculation, it's influence could have come from any of many sources. What was common for the old players, especially Lawrence Walker, was the ability to take a song that may have come from anywhere, and Cajunized it on the accordion, and added his own lyrics. Cajun music is truly a gumbo of whatever ingredients were handy.

Like Greezy, at first Lawrence didn't really get my attention, until I began playing accordion. I then realized the genius of his playing. Not as fancy as many of today's players, but I'm more amazed that those old guys played as well as they did not having a lot to learn from, considering the late arrival of the accordion into Cajun music.

Wherever it came from, it sure is a great song. I used to think it might have been based on the old Western Swing song, "Dance All Night, Stay A Little Longer". I heard someone play the music in more or less the usual way, but they put the english words to Dance All Night with it. I know that Cajun music was greatly influenced by Western Swing during the 1930's, when the accordion kind of declined in popularity for a while. Maybe that's when someone brought in Dance All Night at that time, and then it kind of evolved into Johnny Can't Dance after some years went by?

I have heard so many renditions and I can't keep them straight. What is everyone's favorite version?

The benchmark, in my estimation, is the YouTube recording of Ray Abshire and Courtney Granger in Stockholm, Sweden around 2009. Link #1.

Thanks everyone for the awesome information about Johnny.
If you read the story I posted earlier we all know that Johnny Broussard must have composed that song
Ned's suggestion with Ray Abshire is great but the one with Octa Clark in the kitchen(link#2) is also fantastic. Love them both.
Laughing and playing accordion like that when you're 91 years old must be great.
Ned's video at link#3.
If you want a direct link to something, you have to remove "https://" and only paste www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSDtJqLtvNs into the website link.

While we're at it, let's not forget Pay Day in the Army or The Eight of January. They all seem to be variants on the same song.

The Battle of New Orleans is a version of Soldier's Joy aka. Payday in the Army and who knows before that.

Cross culture tune sharing is one of the great things about music.