*Down In The Bayous In Cajun Country- “The French Blues”, Once Again, Nathan Abshire

Click On Title To Link To YouTube's Film Clip Of Nathan Abshire And Company Doing "Pine Grove 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.

The Cajun Legend; The Best Of Nathan Abshire, Nathan Abshire and his Pine Grove Boys, Swallow Records, 1991

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” “Musician's Life”, “Sur le Courtableu”, “Belisaire Waltz”, “French Blues” and “Valse de Bayou Teche”. Nice.