Word: louisiana
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APPOINTED. GEORGE F. WILL, 54, conservative columnist and baseball maven; as commissioner of the new Texas-Louisiana Professional Baseball League; in Dallas...
Cajun musicians are a colorful, immensely talented lot whose fame is just beginning to reach beyond the bayous and prairies of backcountry Louisiana. Among them are the scholarly accordionist Mark Savoy; guitar virtuoso Sonny Landreth; Michael Doucet, the leader of the fiery Cajun band Beausoleil; and Zydeco players like Keith Frank, Geno Delafose and Terrance Simien, whose dynamic marriage of white Cajun and black Delta blues offers a thrilling alternative to rap and processed...
...Cajuns are descendants of the Acadians, a band of French colonists who founded "l'Acadie" in 1624 in what is now Nova Scotia. Expelled by the British in 1755 -- an event still remembered locally as the "Grand Darangement" -- they eventually wound up in the isolated, rural southwest of Louisiana. There, sharing space with African Americans, many descended from French-speaking Creole "free men of color," they evolved their unique musical language...
...Landreth also played with Chenier in his prime. His first major-label solo album, 1992's Outward Bound, displayed a brilliant command of styles, including Chet Atkins-style flat picking, Delta blues and slide guitar. His most recent album, South of I-10 (referring to the interstate that bisects Louisiana), is even better. Creole Angel, for example, features a Zydeco-like repeated riff that builds to an overpowering climax. Landreth's variety of accents embraces the joyous cultural fusion that is Cajun country. Says he: "Man, this is the place to be." It's hard to disagree. --With reporting...
...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...