Josh McNeill

Tag: cajun music

I’m looking for volonteers.

March 4, 2016 / / 0 Comments

I’m doing a project about the difference between pronunciation when one sings versus when one speaks, so I need some volunteers from Louisiana who can send me two recordings: one in which you sing a song unaccompanied and another in which you speak the same lyrics. If you would like to help me but don’t know how to record your voice, I can record it using Skype, but that requires that you know how to use Skype.

The song is Les Barres de la prison, the version by Canray Fontenot below:

Here are the lyrics:

Goodbye chère vieille mom
Goodbye pauvre vieux pop
Goodbye à mes frères et mes chères petites sœurs
Moi j’ai été condamné pour la balance de ma vie
Dans les barres de la prison

Moi j’ai roulé
Je m’ai mis à malfaire
J’avais la tête dure
J’ai rentré dans le tracas
Asteur je suis condamné pour la balance de ma vie
Dans les barres de la prison

Ma pauvre vieille maman
Elle s’a mis dessus ses genoux
Ses deux mains sur la tête, en pleurant pour moi
Elle dit, «Mmm, mmm»
Cher petit garçon
Moi je vais jamais te revoir
Toi tu as été condamné pour la balance de ta vie
Dans les barres de la prison

J’ai dit chère vieille maman
Pleure pas pour moi
Faut tu pries pour ton enfant, pour essayer de sauver son âme
De les flammes de l’Enfer

If you send me these recordings (to my e-mail address: josh8211@gmail.com or look under Contact above), please indicate the details below, all of which will remain anonymous:

Age:
Hometown:
Current City:
First Language:

If your first language is not French,

When you learned French:
How you learned French:

Please spread the word.

And every singer will still sing about broken hearts, continued.

May 10, 2015 / / 0 Comments

I wrote about Feufollet’s new album Two Universes recently, essentially just to say that their switch from being a band that sings strictly in French to one that sings mostly in English is unique. It isn’t unheard of for musicians to begin using different languages, particularly if the change is to English, but Feufollet’s history and the niche they’ve carved out for themselves make this feel more pronounced.

The implications for this linguistic decision may also spread beyond Feufollet’s own personal sound and image. Arguably the most popular band in Cajun music at the moment, they’re quite possibly in a position to redefine what Cajun music is. Much like zydeco, French could become an occasional occurrence instead of a defining feature if others decide to follow their lead. One could even see this simply as strong support for the more regular tendency of a few other well-known Cajun music acts, such as The Pine Leaf Boys or The Red Stick Ramblers, to sprinkle English language songs throughout their albums.

I didn’t mention this tendency in my last post as both The Pine Leaf Boys and The Red Stick Ramblers generally use English in songs that aren’t of Cajun origin. The former can be heard singing Jerry Lee Lewis tunes in English during concerts but they never translate classic Belton Richard numbers, while the latter seems more at liberty to use English when playing western swing songs. In fact, western swing has been sung in both English and French in Louisiana since the 1940s by people like Harry Choates, to the point where the term Cajun swing is sometimes used. It’s almost as if the less strictly Cajun the other musical aspects of a song are, the more freedom a band has to abandon French, which may partially explain why Feufollet is moving in the same direction as their sound becomes less and less centered on tradition.

We speak English primarily, as our first language, so to write songs in English is not that crazy. But a lot of the way we’ve built our careers was attached to the French cultural preservation side of the music, so we’ll see if people get upset about our singing in English. We’ve done the cultural preservation thing for a very really long time, and right now we just want to be songwriters and musicians and make art first and foremost. –Chris Stafford of Feufollet speaking about singing in English in an interview in Oxford American

It is also possible that the members of Feufollet are coming to the conclusion that French is not a necessary component of Cajun music, or perhaps of even being Cajun, or perhaps they simply no longer view their music as Cajun music. It is interesting to note that Stafford would still describe the action of singing in French as preservation after doing it for so long, with at least two members of the band having grown up in French immersion schooling. Why isn’t this their primary language? Why hasn’t it become a normal aspect of their lives? Are songwriting and language preservation mutually exclusive activities? And what does this say for the future of French in Louisiana when even people who went through immersion schooling and use French professionally view using the language simply as preservation?

The lyrics of the title track Two Universes, quoted partially in the title of this post, may be evidence of the idea that Stafford & Co. are re-evaluating what it means to be a Cajun from Louisiana. At one point, Louisianians could speak of the state almost as its own country, with those from other places simply being referred to as “les Américains,” but these two universes certainly have collided, and maybe that’s just how it should be. For those of us still hoping to see French regain strength in Louisiana, however, this sentiment is particularly sobering.

And every singer will still sing about broken hearts.

April 26, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Rejoice! Feufollet has finally released a new album after five years and an important lineup change. This first single goes a long way towards summing up the result:

The first thing you might notice, certainly the first thing I noticed, is that the newcomer Kelli Jones-Savoy is singing in English. Jones-Savoy is no newcomer to Cajun music in general, though, having played in T’Monde, a band specializing in traditional Cajun songs, since 2011. She’s more than capable of singing in French and in fact does so on three of the four French language tracks on this eleven track album. Numbers like that are surprising themselves when one considers that the only songs Feufollet has recorded in English since their inception over 10 years ago were three lowly songs on the Color Sessions EP, which themselves were written by the psychedelic rock band Brass Bed, also from Lafayette.

Seeing as my own study of the subject found that French is a highly ranked indicator for Cajun music, meaning this isn’t only a notable development because it’s different for Feufollet, but also because it’s different for this style of music altogether. They certainly aren’t the first Cajun musicians to make this change–Zachary Richard recorded songs in English as far back as 1977 and swamp pop has essentially always been sung in English. Feufollet’s situation is different for several reasons, though.

Zachary Richard, for instance, essentially recorded English language music regularly since his career began, almost as if he was suggesting right away that he didn’t want to be pigeonholed into Cajun music conventions. In fact, his career didn’t even start in Louisiana, nor has he ever seemed to come back for very long. In a way, he successfully distanced himself from the music and culture, to the point where one can expect reasonably expect traditionalists to scoff at the mention of his name. None of this is true for Feufollet, however, who have been firmly planted in Lafayette throughout their career and who spent their first years playing nothing but traditional songs, even including them prominently on their later major releases Cow Island Hop and En Couleurs, so that, even when experimenting, it’s easy to imagine that everything they do is derived from that initial seed of respect.

And while Feufollet are well known for their experimentations, their music almost always includes many of the highest ranked indicators of Cajun music. They wield accordions and fiddles and swing to two-steps and waltzes, as any good Cajun artists would do. These features have been progressively dropped from Zachary Richard’s repertoire to the point where his version of the traditional song Colinda in 1979 was essentially straight reggae. This is also where swamp pop becomes a poor comparison to Feufollet. Swamp pop is nearly indistinguishable from any other R&B to come out of the 1950s, except that it was performed by people from Louisiana who might identify as Cajun.

It’s clear that Feufollet are doing something unique with the release of Two Universes, but discussion of the implications will have to wait until another post.

© 2024 Josh McNeill

Theme by Anders Noren — Up ↑