Word: accordioned
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What hardly anyone expected was Accordion Crimes (Scribner; 381 pages; $25), a book that is, in at least one crucial respect, the antithesis of The Shipping News. Accordion Crimes has no central character, unless that term is stretched to include a 19-button green accordion that is brought by its Sicilian maker to New Orleans in the early 1890s. This instrument spends roughly the next 100 years--and the entire novel--drifting haphazardly into the possession of different people or, more precisely, members of different immigrant groups struggling to establish themselves in the U.S. After the accordion maker (who, somewhat...
That, according to Beausoleil's Doucet, accounts for the striking vocal style that marks Cajun music: a high tenor that must strain to be heard over the roaring accordion and droning fiddles. The protean Doucet, 43, is a virtuoso violinist, accordionist and singer who gleefully punctuates the French lyrics with the traditional shouts of "Oh, ya, yaie!" He is also an accomplished composer and scholar who has tracked the Cajun style from its origins in northern France through the songs of such 20th century Cajuns as Amada Ardoin and Iry Lejune. Together with his brother David and some friends...
...selling Graceland album. Country chanteuse Mary Chapin Carpenter won a Grammy in 1992 for Down at the Twist and Shout, her foot-stompin' tribute to Cajun music in general and Beausoleil in particular. "What drew me to Cajun?" ponders Carpenter. "In no particular order: percussion, fiddle, spices, waltzes, Acadian accordion, the tempo, lyrics of love and spirit, gumbo, wails, Highway 10, darkness, dance halls...
...accordion may bring to mind visions of polkas and Lawrence Welk, but to the Cajuns it is the cornerstone of their distinctive sound. First introduced into Louisiana in 1850, the diatonic Cajun accordion has 10 melody buttons (instead of the more familiar piano keys) on one side and two bass accompaniment buttons on the other. "The Cajuns liked the accordion for two reasons," says Savoy. "No. 1, you could break half the metal reeds and it would still play. And No. 2, it was loud...
...young musicians are fast emerging. Delafose (pronounced De-la-foss), 23, whose late father John was a highly regarded Zydeco performer, is a superb accordionist who sings in both English and French. A quiet man who habitually sports a big, black cowboy hat, Delafose taught himself to play the accordion at age 13. On his first solo album, French Rockin' Boogie, he shows his ability to take the simplest melody and then, as he puts it, "add the lacing" to turn a foursquare tune into a surging, syncopated dance. "I'm pretty traditional," he says, "but I can step...