This Is The Most Louisiana Sound You'll Ever Hear, And We Can't Stop Listening To It
By Jackie Ann|Published May 07, 2024
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Jackie Ann
Author
Louisiana native and LSU Alum (Geaux Tigers!), Jackie has lived in Louisiana for over three decades and currently lives in New Orleans. She's been writing for OnlyInYourState since 2016 and can often be found with a coffee at her side, dreaming of her next adventure.
When you think of iconic Louisiana sounds, what comes to mind? Is it the sounds of a snoball machine shaving ice on a hot summer day? Or the sounds of the holy trinity sizzling in a skillet? Or maybe it’s the melodic beat of a bucket drummer in Jackson Square. For me, it’s the sound of an accordion. The Cajun accordion is the foundation for several genres of Louisiana music and it’s one of those instruments where you know what it is from just one note. Pair a Cajun accordion with a fiddle and you’ve got yourself a recipe for a fais do-do!
Let’s take a look back at how the accordion made its way to Louisiana and became such a powerhouse in the Louisiana music scene.
The accordion, specifically the Cajun accordion, has been a prominent instrument for Cajun and Creole musical styles for over a century.
It’s widely believed that the accordion was invented in Berlin in 1822, though there have been some reports that versions of the accordion were built earlier than that. Plenty of different accordions were developed across Europe in the mid-1800s and they were extremely widespread by 1850. They made their way to Acadiana in the 1890s and quickly became popular.
The main reason was that the accordion was loud enough to be easily heard throughout noisy dance halls. Another reason was that they stayed in tune more easily than other instruments. If you’ve ever played an instrument that falls out of tune easily, you know what an inconvenience that is.
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Cajun accordions really hit their stride after the turn of the century.
Originally, accordions were not accompanied by other instruments. Once models were tuned to C and D, they really took off since they could be played with fiddles. Without getting too deep under the hood, early accordions that arrived from Germany were in the keys of A, B, and G. If a fiddle was tuned to one of those keys to play with an accordion, the strings would either be too loose to play or so tight that they would snap. German-made accordions came to Louisiana in the early 1900s that were in the key of C and D, making it possible for the fiddle to accompany the accordion.
Columbia Recording Company came to Crowley in 1928 to record it. This was huge for getting Cajun music heard beyond the rice fields of Cajun Country. Cajun music was in high demand, and more and more people started to pick up an accordion.
World War II played a significant role in the future of Louisiana music.
No more accordions were being shipped over once trade with Germany stopped, and many were destroyed. As other genres influenced Louisiana music, the accordion sat on the bench for much of the 1930s and 1940s since string bands were the popular choice.
With no access to parts for broken accordions and no way to purchase new ones, Cajun music was at a crossroads.
Rather than let the genre become a memory, Louisiana musicians began building their own Cajun accordions. Companies like Larry Miller’s Bon Cajun and Marc Savoy’s Music Center are still around today, handcrafting top-tier Cajun accordions.
Today, the Cajun accordion is found in all types of Louisiana music, with Cajun music, Creole music, and Zydeco embracing the sound the most.
You won’t really find it in swamp pop or jazz since both of those genres rely more on brass and string instruments. Think of Louisiana music as the tree, and each genre is its own branch. They are all influenced by each other, but they all make it their own.
If you want to keep learning about Louisiana music, I’d recommend picking up Accordion Dreams: A Journey Into Cajun and Creole Music by Blair Kilpatrick. Of course, a trip to Eunice is one of the best places to experience Cajun music, so why not pack up the car and set off on a Cajun adventure?
Check out the Youtube video below to hear Allons á Lafayette, the first Cajun music song ever recorded.
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