Hippy Days With Clifton Chenier

This is so good. Following Ron's comment on the last post, here's the UTube video of Clifton Chenier performing "I'm a hog for you". Clifton aka "The King Of Zydeco", is the daddy of CJ, the one that perform in the last post. Last time I saw Clifton was in a dark Montreal second-floor nightclub that was 16 ft wide and 200 feet long, June 1992. I got there late and had to jump to see a tiny man's head. Never got to see the accordion. Last time I saw Ron (all 6'5" of him!) was in a Lafayette restaurant in 1994. Now to see both of them in their prime on this video was quite a thrill. (Ron is the mustachioed spectator in the front row, shown wearing a red t-shirt and holding a beer exactly 52 seconds into the clip). Those hippy days were allright. Clean pre-9/11 fun all-around with sensual females dancing. Got a feeling that when boomers retire the good drugs and music will come out again for an encore. Meanwhile if anyone including Ron has more details on that party (date, place etc...) it would be nice to have it in the comments below. 

Hard To Have Louisiana In Mexico But One Must Try

OK I tried to bring some Louisiana into our house but I quickly quit, having the sound system to play a peppy zydeco tune by C.J. Chenier instead (CLifton Chenier's son). Then I found this clip on UTube. Christ Almighty this family has what it takes, including da beat!

Happy 61st Ron, and here's 20 years ago

Happy sixty-first Ron Smith, you now a Texan and I a Mexican. Remember Louisiana 20 years ago? Troubleshooting a machine we designed and built. Things were'nt so cool all the time. They seem to have improved a lot. I think youth is overrated. The best is yet to come! And here's my family 20 years ago, at my sister Lise's birthday and Yvette's marriage to Dale. Wow, what a hen house assembled at my mother's Ste Adele house! Those chicks (my sisters) have been going downhill since, o cruel fate, but so have we. We don't talk so fast anymore and our muscle tone went the way of the 45RPM record player. But we don't get in trouble so often and life is more sweet!

BayouMEX first fake concert - Oh Marie!

This beautiful Cajun tune and at least a hundred more were mailed to me by a gracious and genuine Cajun lady from Lafayette LA. We assume that she was either touched by our lack of palpable Cajun energy in this recent video, or she thought we should just quit and buy good music instead. In either case we thought that this 'lip sync' and 'bellow sync' rendition of 'Oh Marie!' should cheer her up. If we cannot be true Cajuns in Mexico, we can at least mouth their words and squeeze their tunes over their music. And, Madame Broussard, dat was fun doin, chère!

South Austin, A Musical Melting Pot

It's cold in northern Mexico today, so how'bout having 'Happy Hour' at Evangeline's, a Cajun hotspot in South Austin TX. I miss that lively town where I worked in 1971, designing the Thunder Jet snowmobile racer . All workers at Glastron were Mexicans, the bars played cowboy music and I never knew that just two blocks away from the plant was a big boisterous Cajun bar and restaurant. Workaholics just miss out on too much good stuff. But my then wife Diane did come to join me. She was struck by the fact that when she walked on those long flat boulevards,many Texans would slow down, lower the windows on their air conditioned cars and drawl on to her: "Wouldjoo laaaahk' a raaaahhhde, maaaaaam!" So here's musical compensation, one month away from formal retirement, courtesy of Charles Thibodeaux:

Old Cajun Wedding Song

Both sides of my family are Acadians, farmers from Eastern Canada. They all ran away from the English in Nova Scotia and thus avoided deportation to foreign land. They had to hide in the woods for a 100 years, learning survival skills and trading with the indians. They slowly migrated towards New Brunswick and Quebec and multiplied like rabbits.
Those who got deported on boats as far south as Louisiana were called Cajuns ( from 'cadians) and developed agriculture to provide food for the Spanish troops what had sponsored them. They were cut off from France for 400 years and today have their own linguo, music and food all e-x-t-r-e-m-e-l-y picturesque.
I'm playing the accordion for a marriage this Sunday, so I checked out YouTube for ideas and found this: a cajun wedding song, with strange echoes of longing. These folks stay close to home and party. Who wants to be deported again anyway.
VIDEO BY: CajunAccordeon
If you can't stand this song, click MENU and check out the other videos (Bayou Lafourche wedding, etc...for a different Cajun tune and a happier tone ;-)