Just tonight, I passed by my bookshelf and a book caught my eye.  This book, written by Barry Ancelet with photos by Elemore Morgan, Jr., though familiar to me, I felt the need to flip through it.  While flipping through the pages, I was struck with a sorrow unlike anything I had ever felt before.  Why did this book make me so sad to see these photos of people who were so happy?

I flipped backwards through the book, as my left-hand-brain often does, which began with the “new generation of the 90s.”  This generation included Steve Riley, Geno Delafose, and Dirk Powell, who possess the three most popular Cajun/Zydeco bands today.  I thought a bit about these guys, and realized that they are my peers, in a way, who have been around on the scene and formed the music scene for us younger guys today.  But they are just ordinary guys who talk like us, think like us, and act like us - just a bit more mature.

As I continued to flip backwards through the pages, I saw Mike Doucet at his old Acadian style house, holding his son, Matthew, who was then just a small boy.  Mike is a hero to me, both musically and culturally.  Mike has learned how to make a living strictly with his music, and yet, at his core, maintain a gentle humbleness.  I looked at Mike in photos with his mentors, Dennis McGee, Octa Clark, Canray Fontenot, and the others who took him in - this rather shabby-looking fellow - into their homes and taught him and told him their stories.  Mike grew up at a time period when, in his 20s, he was surrounded by these great old 50-year-old men and women who, weren’t like the 50-year-olds to my generation.  The 50-year-olds to my generation are people like Mike, now, who grew up in a time period not all that different from my time period.  Cars are faster, gas is more expensive, cell phones are everywhere, and the Internet is a major part of human life, but all in all, things aren’t so different.  Mike’s generation and my generation have cars, at least, and electricity, running water, and bathrooms in our home.  Life is faster, as well.  It is not so easy for me to go to Mike’s house and drink coffee with him and talk to him and learn from him.

Then, I flipped back a few more pages, and saw a picture of Dewey Balfa in a circle formed by the legends of Cajun music.  They were all there: Bois Sec Ardoin, DL Menard, Rockin’ Sidney, Hadley Fontenot, Canray Fontenot, The Balfa Brothers, and of course, Nathan Abshire.  I imagined at that instant what that picture would look like with the Cajun and Zydeco musicians today, if we were to place people with the same prestige into this photo. Who would be there in the middle, leading his troops into this new territory of playing music in foreign lands, in front of huge audiences who have never heard this music before?  Who would be in the middle?

Then, finally I turned back a few more pages and saw a picture of Nathan dressed in a red vest with the initial N on the left, and A on the right.  Nathan Abshire.  His arms were stretched out holding his small black hat in one hand with a comical facial expression, as though he had just told a joke.  A microphone stood before him, and on his red vest was pinned a name tag.  A name tag?  A microphone?  All this was foreign in Nathan’s world.  Nathan grew up before microphones even existed.  Even the people all around him were foreigners in his world.  These people were nothing like Nathan, he was alone in this new world, where the dominating language was English, not French like he was surrounded in during his youth.  

Wilson Savoy

August 16, 2006