Cajun Renaissance
Initially, LeJeune found the going tough because at the time the accordion and Cajun music had become unpopular, as it was being replaced by the fiddle and Western Swing music. In postwar Louisiana, many felt Acadiana should assimilate with the rest of America and eliminate the French language, culture and music.
Luckily, in 1948 LeJeune met fiddler Floyd LeBlanc. Together they traveled to Houston, Texas where they recorded "Love Bridge Waltz" and "Evangeline Special" on the Opera label with Virgil Bozeman's Oklahoma Tornadoes supporting. The disc was the turning point in LeJeune's career and for Cajun music. For the first time in nearly a decade, the accordion again wailed from radios and jukeboxes, largely due to many Cajuns returning home from World War II eager to hear their own Cajun music. Cajun listeners responded by buying great quantities of the release. LeJeune stayed in Houston with LeBlanc, performing and enjoying the popularity of the record, but returned to Louisiana after six months.
Upon returning to Lacassine, LeJeune went to radio station KPLC in Lake Charles and asked to perform on the air. The station manager wasn't keen on hearing the primitive, wailing accordion, but disc jockey Eddie Shuler liked what he heard and featured him on several broadcasts. "I felt sorry for the kid," admitted Shuler. "He was nearly blind and he had no other way to make money."
The cameo on Shuler's show proved so successful that Lake Charles listeners demanded more French music. A year later, there was as much as eight hours of French broadcasting on KPLC daily. Still, LeJeune needed a new record out to get work at the dances around Lake Charles. He then approached Shuler, who'd already made a record with his group, the Reveliers, and released it on his own Goldband label. "He said 'Eddie, I want to make records and I want you to make them,'" said Shuler. "I didn't know anything about making French records. Finally I agreed though because there was nobody around here making French records. Nobody was interested in making them because there was no money in French records. But as it turned out, I had the market to myself."
Bribing the engineer with a bottle of Old Crow, Shuler had LeJeune record "Lacassine Special" and "Calcasieu Waltz" on a disc cutter at the radio station used to record commercials and jingles. He sent the metal masters to Houston where several hundred 78s were pressed on the Folk Star label. Selling the release from the trunk of his car to record shops and jukebox outlets, the disc did remarkably well in the area. As a result, Shuler rushed LeJeune back to the station to cut "Teche Special" and "Tee Mone." Suddenly, the fiddle was on the way out of Louisiana and the accordion was back in. Accordionists Lawrence Walker, Aldus Roger, Sidney Brown and Nathan Abshire would soon follow with their own records, but they couldn't touch LeJeune in terms of popularity or sales.
LeJeune assembled a crack band, the Lacassine Playboys, which at one time or another featured Crawford Vincent or Robby Bertrand on drums, Alfred "Duckhead" Cormier on guitar, Wilson Granger on fiddle, R. C. Vanicor on steel guitar and even occasionally Shuler on guitar. The Playboys were known for their casual appearance on the bandstand as LeJeune, never further than an arm's length from a cigarette and a cold bottle of Jax, often looked like he'd just arrived from a day of fishing. Attire aside, LeJeune continued to accumulate a phenomenal body of work. Shuler continued to record LeJeune at KPLC and later at the studio he built on Railway Avenue in Lake Charles. He even recorded LeJeune at his Calcasieu, LA house, setting his tape recorder on the kitchen table. From LeJeune's kitchen came the beautiful "Duralde Waltz," a song that featured no accordion, but did include a well-timed bark by LeJeune's fox terrier. Another classic was "I Made A Big Mistake," a J.D. Miller composition accentuated by LeJeune's bluesy vocals and crying accordion.
Read more about this topic: Iry Le Jeune
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