What is Cajun Dance & Music?

Cajun music has a long and complex genealogy. French people who settled in Acadia, Nova Scotia, preserved a musical heritage rooted in medieval France. After their expulsion by the British in 1755, those seeking refuge in subtropical south Louisiana apparently carried no instruments, though they had obtained fiddles by the 1800s. The exiled Acadians performed not only old compositions that had survived the expulsion but also composed new tunes, often concerning themes of death, loneliness, and ill-fated love — a reaction to their harsh exile and rough frontier experience.

In Louisiana the Acadians shortly began to encounter and intermarry with other ethnic groups, fostering their evolution into a new ethnic group – the Cajuns. Creoles of African descent exerted a major influence on the Cajuns’ developing music. Late in the 1800’s local merchants imported affordable, durable accordions, which spurred the instrument’s rise in popularity among Cajun musicians. In 1928 phonograph companies began to record Cajun music in an effort to sell more players. Standard versions of classics like Allons à Lafayette, Hip et Taïaut, and Jolie Blonde emerged from these early commercial recordings.

During the 1920s & ’30s, Cajuns experienced a period of increased Anglicization, prompted mainly by the discovery of oil in south Louisiana and the building of new highways. These factors led to an influx of Anglo-American workers who love country & western music. (In addition, some Cajuns moved to southeast Texas, where they found jobs in area oilfields and refineries.) Reacting to these new influences, Cajuns emulated Anglo-American string bands, highlighting the guitar and fiddle at the accordion’s expense. Indeed, the accordion practically disappeared from Cajun music between 1935-1950. At this time, Cajuns added the steel guitar, bass, drums, and even banjos and mandolins to their lineup.

By the late 1940s, however, the accordion again dominated Cajun music, resurrected by accordionists like Iry LeJeune, Lawrence Walker, and Nathan Abshire, and by war veterans seeking relief in “old-time” music. Although the guitar and fiddle receded to backing roles, Cajun groups kept the steel guitar, upright bass, and drums, all remnants of the string-band era. The accordion’s return, however, corresponded with the arrival of two increasingly popular national genres — rhythm & blues and rock ‘n roll -represented in South Louisiana by the “swamp pop” sound. Cajun music appeared to many on the verge of extinction.

Then, in 1964, a Cajun musician (Dewey Balfa) appeared to critical acclaim at the Newport Folk Festival. This helped to trigger the “Cajun revival.” At the same time, young Cajun musicians like Michael Doucet and Zachary Richard were pushing the limits of Cajun music, combining it with other sounds in a way similar to swamp pop musicians in the 1950s. During the early to mid-1980s, Cajun music (as well as zydeco) experienced a worldwide boom in popularity that continues to the present.

Button Accordion, fiddle, triangle (aka ’tit fer, bostrang), guitar (sometimes slide guitar/peddle steel), bass, drums. Often, the accordion player can also play the fiddle, and some of the hauntingly beautiful older tunes feature “twin-fiddling” with no accordion.

Cajun music has typically always been played as music for dancing – not just for listening…  After the accordion was imported and available in the United States, it became a great asset for Cajun bands because, unlike the fiddle, it could be heard over the noise of the dancers feet, in the era before amplification.

“Two-step” songs (4-beats)

There are several options for dancing to Cajun two-step music:

8-ct two-step – quick/quick slow, quick/quick slow – travels around the line-of-dance.

6-ct two-step –  quick/quick slow, slow – travels around the line-of-dance – this is known as “Mamou Two-Step,” and is the same thing as Texas or C&W Two-Step.

Mamou Jitterbug – This is basically an adaptation of single-rhythm swing dancing, done in the center of the dance floor, leaving the perimeter open for the traveling dancers to use. It has the same count as the Mamou Two-Step – quick/quick slow, slow – and the quick/quick is equivalent to the “rock-step” in Swing dancing.

Cajun Jitterbug  – Traditional Cajun Jitterbug features a “hobble step” alternating feet like you are stepping on and off a curb, and lots of underarm turns popular with C&W dance.

Waltz (3-beats)  – Cajun or zydeco waltz is generally a simple progressive waltz that travels around the “line of dance” of the dance floor.  A Mamou-waltz variation actually features the Mamou two-step footwork pattern, and you can count it “step, step, step/hold, step, hold”.