Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Nathan Abshire Doing "French Blues".
CD REVIEW
The introductory paragraphs in this review have been used to review other Cajun CDs in this space.
Well, it is about time that I started to review some of the work of the good old boys and girls from the bayous down in Cajun country. Places like Lafayette and Lake Charles evoke memories of time and place in Cajun musical history. You know, at the edges of the places where the likes of Hank Williams and Jerry Lee Lewis learned their crafts. And places where all kinds of mixes of music and races blended to form unique sounds all their own. Accordions, washboards, fiddles, guitars and what ever came to hand on those whiskey-drenched Saturday nights.
And on those nights come names like Clifton Chenier and Booboo Chavis that form the black-influenced strand of the music. The Hackberry Ramblers and the likes of Waylon Thibodeaux form another, the good old white boys. French Acadian exiles, English “swamp foxes” of undetermined origin, black escaped slaves, “poor white trash”- it is all there mixed in one form or another. For the most part there were no serious conscious attempts to mix the strands but how could the intermixing influences be avoided in that small isolated area of southwest Louisiana. And all under the umbrella of what I call the “French blues”. Get your dancing slippers on.
“French Blues”, Nathan Abshire And His Pine Grove Boys, Arhoolie Records, 1993
If you, like me, need to have your Cajun music with accordion then your first stop is to this band under review, Nathan Abshire and his Pine Grove Boys. For pure Saturday night party time down in Cajun country the band with Abshire leading the way with his accordion can’t be beat. Listen up to “Pine Grove Blues”, the classic title track “French Blues, “The New Jolie Blon”, “Mama Rosin” and a super “Cannon Ball Special”
No comments:
Post a Comment