You know I just can't seem to get enough of Cajun/Creole music! I just love all of it from the traditional Old Balfa recordings to the Pine Leaf Boys. Plus I still play and love bluegrass just about on a daily basis. I still find myself getting out my box on about every session doing something. I have just about went broke in the past buying bluegrass on itunes and now I'm starting to buy up cajun and zydeco on itunes as well. I think I need an intervention or something. I've got every recording Boozoo made that I could get my hands on from Amazon and now I'm buying Basin Brothers and searching youtube for more good bands to buy. Do ya'll think I'm hopeless addicted or is there a light at the end of this tunnel? LOL! Bruce

Bruce - my recorded music arterial bleeding only slowed down a bit after I realized that I had so much classic stuff that I hadn't listened to in a while, and I would really benefit from going back and putting on the headphones, accordion in hand, and re-learning stuff I had only hacked through earlier.

In other words, trying to give what I've already got its due.

But have fun while the fever's on

Steve Blais

What I want to know is if you have ever had the guts to bring a Cajun accordion to a bluegrass session?

Ain't addiction fun?

Capt. E

Hey I've did that several times even at bluegrass festivals. Folks around here look at it as strictly a novelty. Usually I try to build it up with a story from my Louisiana visits in the past. I've actually got a guy interested in doing a little cajun night at his house complete with gumbo and some cajun music. Hey I'm just helping spread the fever. Bruce

Do you know any bluegrass tunes that work well on the diatonic? I'm trying to figure out a few as I have a neighbor who is a bluegrass mandolin player and I was going to try to learn to jam a bit with him. The only one I've found sheet music to is Will The Circle Be Unbroken, and man that has a lot of pulls in it!

Hal

I'll Fly Away Check link #2 Also "Gravel Yard" "Home Sweet Home" "Sweet Bye & Bye" Flop Eared Mule I've found that I can play about any bluegrass tune on mine. You might have to fudge a note or two, but it works out real well with most tunes if they are in my key my box is. Bruce

I play Whiskey before Breakfast on my D accordion in the key of D. That is the preferred key for fiddlers and mandoliners.

Joel Sonnier has many records with bluegrass music cajun hymns, cajun traditon, etc. only instrumental.
amazing grace, will the circle be unbroken, i`ll fly away many church songs etc.

Not sure you'd call it a bluegrass tune, but "The Old Gray Mare" works great on a Cajun box. You can play it fast, improv as much as you want, add bounce etc etc. Anything in an appropriate key will work. I do Streets of Laredo, Waltz Across Texas, even Waltzing Matilda. Heck, you could probably do "Liberty" and "Soldier's Joy".

Capt. E.

I've been successfully playing "The Habitat Two-Step"(Home Sweet Home) and Blue Ridge Mountain Blues at Bluegrass Jams. I sort of stepped in when the Celtic Concertina player stepped out.

Check out "In the Pines" by Chris Miller

Do you have Gerard Dole's Cajun Accordion Old and New?
In my humble opinion if you like old Cajun tunes as well as old French folksongs I consider it a must-have.

You can get it from Smithsonian Folkways.

http://www.smithsonianfolkways.org/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=1435

Hal

A person could explore that Smithsonian site for a while, I felt like I discovered a gold mine when I found that.

Bryan, put that down for a must visit. I could have spent a month in there when I visited the Smithsonian.

Man,
Gerard really did a ton of research and recording 30 years ago.
Thank goodness somebody did.
Unfortunately, old-timey stuff tends to be forgotten and replaced. Not hip, you know.
The Smithsonian evidently likes his stuff, and yes, going to their site was fun.
Didn't know it existed.
Gerard and I have evidently had the same situation regarding hair; Once we had it; 30 years later, were did it go?
I noticed that at one time his band was the 'Backdoor Cajuns', a backdoor Cajun being an outsider who has a love of Cajun style.
A little bit kinky, perhaps, but a good analogy, nevertheless.
JB

Yep, Gerard did an awful lot for collecting and saving some old stuff that was taken for granted at the time by those like me.

This addiction thing can become serious! Mine began twelve years ago when I happened to hear Beausoleil play at the Smithsonian Folk Festival, and I've never been the same since.

First it started with wanting to hear more...I began buying CDs. Then, when there did not appear to be many that I did not have, I discovered LPs. I soon learned that there were an awful lot of great LPs of Cajun music that nobody seemed to care about; so I started looking for them (From a financial standpoint, that was a good thing - but no, I began believing that these old LPs should be saved and made available to the public). It wasn't long before I became disillusioned.

Nevertheless, I kept looking for Cajun recordings. Then I discovered Old-Time music...well, the addiction grew until there seems to be no room for more CDs, LPs, etc; but I continue - on-line auctions, private auctions, used record stores, monthly record sales, etc. And very few people even know what I'm talking about; so you try to figure out for yourself where relevant LPs might be placed.

I think the nadir might have been when I met this lady at a pawn shop in Lafayette. She said that she thought that she had some recordings that I might like at home; so I met her at her house late one evening. When I got there, there was a refrigerator in her yard; her husband was sitting on the porch smoking something unusual; and the lady had brought all of her LPs outside of her house on the porch. After looking at a few of the LPs, I realized that there was going to be nothing there; but she had gone to a lot of trouble to let me look at her LPs. I thought that I should buy something anyway; so I did and finally left wondering what I had become.

Well, I got over that and have continued ever since, still going strong.

If you want to know about "collectors" and "collecting," and maybe yourself, I would recommend gettin g a CD put out a couple of years ago by Richard Nevins on his Yazoo label. It is titled "The Stuff That Dreams Are Made Of." It is primarily about record collectors (Richard Nevins is one). The two CD set has copies of a lot of rare 78s, but the real gem is the accompanying booklet - it is priceless. I won't say anymore about the booklet; but if you see similarities to yourself, you might be a collector without realizing it. The theme, though, is that collectors play a valuable role by preserving the "old stuff" that would likely disappear if no one else cared. That includes the music...

Jack Bond