 |
Despite
its current popularity, Cajun music has evolved through some
lean years. Around the turn of the century Cajun
was a predominently fiddle based music played at house dances
(bals de maison) and fais-do-dos (named
for the seperate room where children could be rocked to sleep).
In the early 1900's, the diatonic accordian was
adopted and by the thirties the music began to move out
of homes and into dance halls and bars. |
Traditional
Cajun music suffered its first major blow at this time, when
popular swing and country styles heard on the
radio supplanted the older styles. The accordian was abandoned
in favor of electric and steel guitars. In the
late forties accordian-based music enjoyed a brief renaissance,
spurred by Cajun hero Iry Lejeune. The boom was short-lived,
however, as the banning of French in public schools, the oil
boom, and improved roads and communication |
