LET THE GOOD TIMES UNROLL: MUSIC AND RACE RELATIONS IN SOUTHWEST LOUISIANA.

Laissez les bon temps roulez, or "Let the good times roll," is often heard at musical events, parties, festivals, and other upbeat events of both black Creoles and Cajuns living in Southwest Louisiana. Black Creoles are black persons living in the area whose contemporary identity reflects strong French and African roots as well as other ethnic and cultural influences. Their music is widely known as zydeco music. In this article, the term "black Creole" will be used rather than "African American" since it is the preferred term among most residents of Southwest Louisiana, including among most black Creoles. The term "Cajun" is an anglicized rendition of "Cadien," which is a shortened version of "Acadien," the French word for Acadian. It refers to the white, francophone people and culture of Southwest Louisiana.

In this article, I use music as a window into relations between black Creoles and Cajuns, interpreting music as a social arena in which relations between the two groups are partly determined.(1) As the title of this article suggests, musical practices in recent times have been the source and site of some discontent between black Creoles and Cajuns. Beginning in the 1960s, Cajun musicians led a Cajun cultural revival that succeeded in drawing attention to some of the problems of Cajuns, such as cultural assimilation, poverty, and ethnic stigma. It also succeeded in helping to partially overcome these problems. Many black Creoles believe that at least some of this resurgence of Cajun culture has come at their expense. They charge that Cajuns have profited from the use of black Creole cultural property, that black Creole contributions to cultural vitality in Southwest Louisiana are too frequently overlooked, and that the Cajun revival represents a bid for cultural dominance. Much of this controversy has been generated by, or around, musical practices.

Music as a Social Arena of Communication and Interaction

Taken together, zydeco and Cajun music represent a social arena of communication and interaction. This arena is defined by the musical texts themselves and also by the complex of associated practices that define the context in which musical texts circulate. In other words, it encompasses the people and sites involved in the production, consumption, and use of zydeco and Cajun music. Within this arena, black Creoles and Cajuns share experiences, communicate with each other, and partly determine their mutual relations. This can be seen more clearly by briefly examining the overlapping histories of zydeco and Cajun music.

Both zydeco and Cajun music have absorbed many different influences, especially elements drawn from French and African roots. Historically, musicians in both traditions sang almost entirely in French, and both traditions emphasized waltz and two-step dance forms derived primarily from Europe. Today, many musicians continue to compose and sing in French, and the waltz and two-step remain popular among both groups. Cajuns brought their French heritage with them when they emigrated from French Canada during the latter half of the eighteenth century. Black Creoles acquired their French heritage from their Acadian neighbors, from immigrants and slaves arriving from Haiti, and from their parents and grandparents who were themselves immigrants and slaves from Haiti. The African influence in Cajun and zydeco music can be seen in blues sentiments and expressions, percussive and rhythmic techniques, syncopation, and vocal and instrumental improvisation.

The African precursors of zydeco music include slave music in the form of rhythmic stomping, field hollers, jure singers, and hand clapping accompanied by rhythm instruments such as spoons, washboards, and sticks. Later precursors include "la la" music, fast French dance music with a rhythm-and-blues influence developed in Southwest Louisiana in the early- and mid-twentieth century.

In modern times, zydeco reflects the strong influences of African-American blues, soul, jazz, and rhythm and blues. Different zydeco musicians incorporate different influences. For example, the zydeco of Clifton Chenier and Stanley "Buckwheat Zydeco" Dural reflect a strong rhythm-and-blues influence, and the zydeco of Terrance Simien, while incorporating elements as diverse as reggae, is most obviously influenced by soul music.

Cajun and zydeco musicians draw from similar and sometimes identical individual musical sources. Early twentieth-century black Creole musicians who provided the foundations for zydeco music included Amede Ardoin (accordion), Freeman Fontenot (accordion), Alphonse "Bois Sec" Ardoin (accordion), Canray Fontenot (fiddle), Claude Faulk (accordion), and Bebe Carriere (fiddle). These are the same musicians often cited as important early influences for Cajun music.

During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, poor Cajuns (the vast majority) interacted closely with black Creoles, their fellow tenant farmers, despite concurrent pressure for segregation. Cajun musicians acquired some of their Africa-inspired musical elements from this interaction. This influence is apparent in abundant testimonies by Cajun musicians, such as Octa Clark, who states that he composed blues songs after hearing black Creoles singing in the fields. His longtime music partner, Hector Duhon, acknowledges a similar debt to black Creoles: "Tenant farmers would come up to the store. My old daddy would give them something to play. You'd also hear them singing in the fields, spirituals, hollers and yells. It was beautiful the way they sang" (Spitzer 1982).

Although there are significant differences between Cajun and zydeco music, there are also many striking similarities. Both rely heavily on the accordion, for example. Cajuns and some zydeco musicians prefer the single-row diatonic accordion, whereas other zydeco musicians such as Clifton Chenier and Stanley "Buckwheat Zydeco" Dural replaced the diatonic accordion with the more versatile piano accordion. While the fiddle continues to play a central role in Cajun music, it has largely been dropped from use by contemporary zydeco musicians.

The legendary black Creole accordionist Amede Ardoin is often cited as the primary influence in the development of traditional Cajun accordion playing as well as contemporary zydeco music (Savoy 1984, 152). Ardoin often played for dances at white homes and dance halls as well as black Creole events. This, along with the recordings he made in the late 1920s with the Cajun fiddler Dennis McGee, challenged strict segregationist codes of his day. Many of Ardoin's compositions remain in the contemporary Cajun repertoire.

The musical sensibilities and lyrical themes of Cajun and zydeco music also have much in common, reflecting similar experiences and lives. Both, for example, contain strong blues inflections such as blues scales and vocal breaks evoking crying or sadness. Their lyrical themes emphasize economic marginalization, lost love, and unrequited love. Both zydeco and Cajun music nearly disappeared under pressure from Anglo assimilationist influences, going "backporch" during the lean years of the 1930s, 1940s, and 1950s although not disappearing entirely. Both have also experienced revivals within the last thirty years, albeit with significant differences, discussed below.

The affinities between zydeco and Cajun music suggest a history of at least partially shared experiences and of overlapping points of identity. The similarities of musical expression reflect common and shared experiences that, significantly, occurred in a context of near-absolute social segregation. Cajuns and black Creoles had frequently played together for dances and house parties during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries (Ancelet 1993). Certain prominent musicians in the twentieth century played key bridging roles. As already noted, Amede Ardoin, Canray Fontenot, and Alphonse "Bois Sec" Ardoin are frequently cited for their contributions to both Cajun and black Creole musical traditions (Savoy 1984, 66-78, 320-341; Ancelet 1984, 73-87). Cajun musician Dewey Balfa was noted for his willingness to cross the rigid racial lines in Southwest Louisiana. Clifton Chenier, popular with white as well as black audiences, regularly played white clubs, and whites sometimes braved racial segregation to hear him perform at black Creole clubs such as Richard's in Lawtell and Slim's Y Ki Ki in Opelousas. Chenier and "Good Rockin'" Dopsie also sometimes recorded with whites.

Social interactions between black Creoles and Cajuns still occur through the music and musical practices. The contemporary repertoire of Cajun and zydeco music reflects a lively, ongoing cross-fertilization. For example, many of Amede Ardoin's compositions remain in circulation in Cajun music, and popular Cajun bands such as Beausoleil and Wayne Toups' Zydecajun both experiment widely with zydeco rhythms and instruments such as the frottoir (rub board). Some of the most popular zydeco bands now playing in Southwest Louisiana, such as Beau Jocque's Zydeco Hi-Rollers and Zydeco Force, use the same single-row diatonic accordion as Cajun accordionists and perform slower waltzes and two-steps in a style similar to Cajun bands. Blacks and whites still mingle occasionally at festivals and other musical venues. Festival Acadien, an annual music festival held in Lafayette, always includes representative black Creole musicians. Festival International de Louisiane, an annual event also held in Lafayette that attracts crowds as large as one hundred and fifty thousand, showcases both black and white musicians from various French-speaking parts of the world, including Southwest Louisiana.

Direct social interaction through musical practices, however, has always been and remains limited. Although musicians could sometimes cross racial barriers, nonmusicians found it much more difficult. Everyday social life, including and especially in musical venues, remains very segregated even though workplaces and schools are desegregated (Watters 1993; Ancelet, 1993, 12-13).

Musical Practices as a Cause of Racial Conflict

Many black Creoles believe that the contemporary promotion of Cajun music and culture partially erases black Creole contributions to the culture of Southwest Louisiana (Chretien 1992, 26-27; Watters 1993, 13-14). They argue that the Cajun promotion, some of it funded by local, state, and federal governments, unfairly singles out Cajuns as representative of all of Southwest Louisiana, involves a claim of dominant status for Cajuns among the many ethnic and racial groups in the area, and entails a colonization of black Creole culture. One result is increased racial tension, already at high levels due to economic competition, white support for David Duke, and lingering resentments over the perceived failure of desegregation (Watters 1993, 12-13). There is "widespread disapproval" among black Creoles of the promotion of Cajun music and culture (13). While black Creoles "speak in even tones about perceived white racism and discrimination ... voices become angry when talking about the Acadian renaissance of the last 20 years" (14). Much of this anger and mistrust is fueled by musical practices.

The contemporary roots of the tension between black Creoles and Cajuns can be found in early organizing efforts for the Cajun revival. In attempting to acknowledge their cultural debts to black Creoles and honestly portray their own roots, Cajun music festival organizers usually included black Creoles. The 1974 First Tribute to Cajun Music, the forerunner to today's annual Festival Acadien, included black Creoles Clifton Chenier, Alphonse "Bois Sec" Ardoin, and Canray Fontenot. Subsequent "Cajun" music festivals have followed a similar pattern, including and even honoring black Creole musicians. While these may be "steps in the right direction" (Ancelet 1992a, xviii) toward acknowledging black Creole contributions to Cajun music and culture, the perception among black Creoles remains that there exists a concurrent process of incorporating black Creole cultural expressions into the category of Cajun, including and especially zydeco music.

There are many examples of this incorporation process. In addition to the festivals already noted, various publications, recordings, legislative initiatives, and other public documents and pronouncements routinely subsume black Creole contributions to the culture of Southwest Louisiana under the label Cajun. For example, Ann Savoy entitled her book on the music of the area Cajun Music even though it also discusses zydeco music. She states in her introduction that Cajun music "is the rub-board and the triple row accordion driving to the beat of an electric bass in a black club in a creole community" as well as fiddle and single-row diatonic accordion music (Savoy 1984, xi). She also includes an entire section on "Old Style Creole and Modern Zydeco" (300-413).

Barry Ancelet's The Makers of Cajun Music (1984) also addresses both Cajun and zydeco music. Since Cajun and black Creole music are both so intimately tied to their respective communities, subsuming zydeco music under the category of Cajun implicitly subsumes black Creole communities under Cajun communities, which, in turn, places the category of Cajun in a dominant position relative to black Creole.

In his book South to Louisiana: The Music of the Cajun Bayous, John Broven describes zydeco music as music sung by "black Cajuns" (1983, 101). Chris Strachwitz, owner of the California-based Arhoolie record label, which helped bring the music of Southwest Louisiana to a national and international audience, calls Amede Ardoin "The First Black Cajun Recording Artist" (1991). In 1981, KEUN radio in Eunice, Louisiana, began broadcasting an hour of zydeco music on Saturday mornings, announcing that "zydeco, traditional black Cajun music, has been neglected by Southwest Louisiana radio stations for years" (Broven 1983, 116).

These examples of references to zydeco music as music of "black Cajuns" make the incorporation of black Creoles into the category of Cajun explicit. The reference to Amede Ardoin as a "black Cajun" especially grates on black Creoles for whom he represents a revered cultural godfather. Finally, according to the liner notes for a recording by Queen Ida and the Bon Temps Band, "Zydeco music is of Cajun origin and brought to Louisiana from French Canada by the Acadians.... The Creoles adopted the music and added their cultural flavor" ("Zydeco," 1976). This explanation of the origin of zydeco music implicitly condones a primary valuation of the French contribution and concurrent devaluation of the African influence. It also distorts history, since African influences, which hardly originated in French Canada, primarily define zydeco music. It is especially unfortunate since Queen Ida (Guillory) is a black Creole.

This incorporation process sometimes appears to encompass the entire culture of Southwest Louisiana. Responding to tourist interest, the Louisiana legislature designated Southwest Louisiana as "Cajun Country," as billboards announce upon travelers' arrival. The University of Southwestern Louisiana recently rechristened its sports teams the "Ragin' Cajuns" despite the fact that a large number of the athletes are African American. The city of Lafayette now calls its bus system, used primarily by people of color, the "Ragin' Cajun Busline." Throughout the area, one can now buy just about anything carrying a "Cajun" label, from McCajun fries to Cajun fishing bait to Cajun lingerie. Ancelet (1992a, xxi) rightly notes that "Creoles are left to wonder what happened to their contribution to the French Louisiana cultural gumbo."

The significance of this incorporation process in the world of music can further be appreciated by examining the roots of the term "zydeco." The phrase les haricots sont pas sale (the snapbeans are unsalted), a reference to hard times that is found on an early Clifton Chenier recording, is usually cited as the source of the term "zydeco."(2) Although the reference to hard times may be appropriate as a metaphor for this bluesy music of black Creoles, this popular understanding of the term's origin tells only part of the story. Chenier himself offered a different explanation. According to Chenier, the term was already circulating when he began playing music: "See, the old people used to say `Let's go to the zydeco,' meaning the dance. And I kept that in mind, and when I started playing music I called my music `zydeco'" (quoted in Savoy 1984, 373).

Clarence Garlow's "Bon Ton Roula," recorded in the late 1940s, contains a direct reference to zydeco as an event: "At the church bazaar or the baseball game, / At the French La La, it's all the same, / You want to have fun, now you got to go / Way out in the country to the Zydeco. / Well, let the Bon Ton Roula" (Broven 1983, 105). The social event to which Chenier and Garlow refer included a communal feast with a gumbo to which all participants contributed, as well as music and dancing. It played a central social and celebratory role in the life of rural black Creoles in Southwest Louisiana. Its cooperative, communal, and celebratory dimensions both revealed and reshaped the characteristics of black Creole communities. Given the historical significance of zydeco as a community-affirming social event, calling zydeco music "black Cajun" music and placing it under the label of Cajun implicitly involves not only an incorporation of music but of whole communities of black Creoles.

Since the early 1980s, black Creoles and others have responded with criticism to this incorporation and with attempts to develop a cultural revival paralleling the Cajun revival. Some, such as Takuna El Shabazz, openly criticize Cajuns for indiscriminately incorporating black Creole cultural expressions into the category of Cajun. He calls the Cajun promotion in Southwest Louisiana "a form of white colonialism," since it involves a new form of domination of black people by white people (El Shabazz 1992, 43). Making matters worse, in his view, black Creoles must help pay for their own colonization, since tax money is now routinely used to promote Cajun tourism. This, he says, "is taxation without representation, and misuse and abuse of public funds" (43).

El Shabazz and others in the Lafayette area formed the Un-Cajun Committee in 1982 in order to draw attention to their concerns and organize a response. Although attacked for being anti-Cajun, for organizing in order to "bash Cajuns," and for attempting to stir up hatred between whites and blacks (Ancelet 1992b, 42; El Shabazz 1992, 45), El Shabazz insists that the Un-Cajun Committee exists not to oppose or disparage Cajuns but to counter the colonization of black Creole cultural expressions and identities and to highlight the differences between Cajuns and others in Southwest Louisiana. El Shabazz and other members of the Un-Cajun Committee frequently draw criticism for allegedly focusing on an inconsequential issue and for failing to focus on the real issues of education, jobs, drugs, and crime that plague some black Creole communities. El Shabazz (1992, 45, 43) responds that these criticisms imply that "one has nothing to do with the other." At the heart of these problems, in his view, is that black Creoles "have no real sense of [their] own history and culture" and that the Cajun promotion exacerbates this problem. Robbing black Creoles of their cultural foundations contributes to the social and economic problems that plague their communities by "contributing to the self-hatred syndrome of black people in Southwest Louisiana" and by "kill[ing] the desire for self-determination." Efforts by El Shabazz and others have promoted awareness among black Creoles of the problem of cultural incorporation. Many black Creoles now believe that implicit in the process of Cajun expansion and promotion is a bid for cultural dominance (Chretien 1992, 26-27).

Black Creole activists in Southwest Louisiana have also attempted to foster a revival comparable to the Cajun revival. Like the Cajun revival, music provides a cornerstone. Prominent annual zydeco festivals now include the Southwest Louisiana Zydeco Music Festival held in Plaisance and the Zydeco Extravaganza held in Lafayette's Blackham Coliseum. The Plaisance Festival, organized initially in 1982, now routinely attracts more than twenty thousand fans. Organizers call it "a celebration of Creole culture," a "revival," a "rebirth," and a "rubberstamp" of Creole culture (Guillory, Savoy, and Scott 1993). Their efforts are helping to return zydeco to its original sense of a communal event and to revitalize the communities in which it is set.

Black Creoles now host radio and television programs on zydeco music and black Creole culture. Black Creoles also now host their own music awards program for zydeco musicians, the Zydeco People's Choice Awards. Efforts are underway to promote tourist interest in black Creole music and culture by collaborating with organizations such as the Greater New Orleans Black Tourists Commission. This organization attempts to link interest in New Orleans jazz with interest in zydeco music in Southwest Louisiana.

Two other organizations have emerged that occasionally promote zydeco music: CREOLE, Inc. (Cultural Resourceful Educational Opportunities for Linguistic Enrichment) and Creole Magazine. CREOLE, Inc. was formed in 1988 to create an awareness of cultural differences in Southwest Louisiana between black Creoles and Cajuns and to promote black Creole culture. Creole Magazine covers many issues of concern to black Creoles in Southwest Louisiana, including cultural expressions such as zydeco music. It promotes black Creole political, social, economic and cultural interests, offers Creole French lessons, and serves as an information vehicle.

Music as a Catalyst for Change?

In spite of current racial tensions, Cajun and zydeco musicians continue to borrow freely from each other, albeit generally not through face-to-face interactions. The two musics continue to overlap at multiple points. This signals the persistence of a communicative arena in which black Creoles and Cajuns share at least some social experiences and where difficult cultural and racial issues can be raised. Social segregation between whites and blacks has been an accepted fact of life in south Louisiana for a long time. Its very mundaneness may legitimize and perpetuate it. The barriers erected by social segregation prevent progress on mutual problems such as the endemic poverty that affects many Cajuns and black Creoles alike. The conflict stirred up by musicians has brought this impasse into sharper relief. While regrettable, it may be a necessary prelude to change.

(1.) A more extensive treatment of some of the themes raised in this article, along with additional case studies, can be found in Mark Mattern (1998). For a history of Cajuns, see especially Carl Brasseaux (1987, 1991, 1992). For histories of Cajun and zydeco music, see especially Barry Jean Ancelet (1984, 1989, 1992a) and Ann Savoy (1984).

(2.) "Zydeco," so the story goes, is the phonetic rendering of the last three syllables of Les haricots. The Creole French spoken by many black Creoles in Southwest Louisiana was until recently strictly an oral language. In attempting to turn it into a written language, spellings for various words had to be invented. The term "zydeco" has been in circulation for a long time, but only in the early 1960s did ethnomusicologist Mack McCormick attempt to render it in writing (Ancelet 1988, 34).

REFERENCES

Ancelet, Barry Jean. 1984. The makers of Cajun music. Austin: University of Texas Press.

--. 1988. Zydeco/Zarico: Beans, blues and beyond. Black Music Research Journal 8, no. 1:33-49.

--. 1989. Cajun music: Its origins and development. Lafayette: The Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Southwestern Louisiana.

--. 1992a. Introduction to Cajun music and zydeco, by Philip Gould. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

--. 1992b. Ragin' Cajuns: What's in a name? Creole Magazine 3:12, 42-44.

--. 1993. Interview with the author. Lafayette, La., October 2.

Brasseaux, Carl A. 1987. The founding of New Acadia: The beginnings of Acadian life in Louisiana, 1765-1803. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

--. 1991. Scattered to the wind: Dispersal and wanderings of the Acadians, 1755-1809. Lafayette: The Center for Louisiana Studies, University of Southwestern Louisiana.

--. 1992. Acadian to Cajun: Transformation of a people, 1803-1877. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

Broven, John. 1983. South to Louisiana: The music of the Cajun bayous. Gretna, La.: Pelican Publishing.

Chretien, David. 1992. In a diverse culture: "Cajuns" and "Creoles" should be promoted. Creole Magazine 3:11, 26-27.

El Shabazz, Takuna Maulana. 1992. Promotion of "Cajun/Acadiana" is colonialism. Creole Magazine 3:12, 43-45.

Guillory, Wilbert, Liz Savoy, and Paul Scott. 1993. Brochure, The Original Southwest Louisiana Zydeco Music Festival. Plaisance: Southwest Louisiana Music Festival.

Mattern, Mark. 1998. Acting in concert: Music, community, and political action. New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press.

Savoy, Ann. 1984. Cajun music: A reflection of a people. Eunice, La.: Bluebird Press.

Spitzer, Nicholas. 1982. Liner notes. Octa Clark and Hector Duhon: The Dixie ramblers--ensemble encore. Rounder Records 6011.

Strachwitz, Chris. 1991. Liner notes. Amede Ardoin: The first black Cajun recording artist. Arhoolie Records OT124.

Watters, Pat. 1993. Different worlds. The [Lafayette, La.] Times of Acadiana September 29:12-22.

Zydeco: Cajun/Creole/bayou music. 1976. Liner notes. GNP Crescendo 2101.

MARK MATTERN is assistant professor of political science at Chapman University in Orange, California. He is the author of Acting in Concert: Music, Community, and Political Action (Rutgers University Press, 1998).