Louisiana Blues transcript English translation
English translation with time code marking ...
1:21:21-1:35:22 I have two boys, Tony and Dino are my boys, and Jimmy is my nephew, and
Charlie is my cousin. That makes a family band.
1:58:25-2:40:15 My name is Roy Blanchard, I come from Louisiana just south of the Chapala
basin, and it's here that we make our living. We catch shrimp, and fish, and crabs. If you like the
woods and all that, well, it's really a good life.
3:02:22-3:05:07 That’s good.
5:32:23-6:11:03 The American census of 1990 said 267,000 people still speak French today.
And close to a million that have French ancestry. But in that you could say there is more because
there was no category for people of color.
8:53:14-9:33:07 French speaking Louisianians were not how they are now with a highway that
goes right in the middle of our country. Before it took 3 or 4 hours to get to Baton Rouge, and
another 3 or 4 hours to get to New Orleans. So you didn't have a lot of contact with the outside
world. And the prairies, until the beginning of the century, were the most isolated areas of
Louisiana. So it's mainly in the prairies, and other isolated areas, that French was maintained.
Another reason I think French was maintained is the people here are stubborn, and we still are.
9:36:23-10:43:26 Cajuns are, in part, the descendants of a handful of people who originated in
the west of France, more specifically from the Loudun region, who, at the beginning of the 17th
century, populated the east of Canada and called it Acadia. After a long war, the English took
control of Canada in 1655. They chased away the Acadians, who owned good land, to replace
them with English families, then deported them to the Atlantic coast of America and Great
Britain.
This dramatic episode, known as the Great Expulsion, condemned the Acadians to a long
wandering. Some sought refuge in France, others in the colonies, but it was Louisiana, where
they found green land on the border of the Mississippi and in the basin of the Chaphalya, that
became their promised land.
Desperate Acadians came in successive movements, and the last and biggest movement arrived
from France 25 years after their deportation. In 1803, Napoleon sold Louisiana to the United
States. Now American citizens, the Acadians, under the effects of the creole pronunciation,
become known as Cajuns.
11:02:20-11:39:00 All my ancestors- I’m a Ducey-came to France after The Great Expulsion.
The other side of my family was LeBlanc. It was Desirie LeBlanc and Michel Doucet who came
to France. They stayed in France for a good ten years. The LeBlanc's built a house on Belle Ile,
near Great Britain, and then came to Louisiana 10 years later.
12:28:22-12:54:13 The majority of Cajuns stayed humble farmers, with family farms. There was
already black slaves here, who were owed by French planters during the period of slavery. But
this population was reinforced by an immigration of people from The Antilles, who came after
the revolution of Toussaint Louverture, led by Saint Domingue.
15:53:08-16:24:27 The nation of Louisiana is the Creole nation. Cajuns are part of this nation,
which is the Creole nation. When we are of Acadian origin, we have a shared origin, and we
speak fairly similarly to one another, it makes it so that Acadians represent a social layer between
the working class and the middle class of the nation of Louisiana, the Creole nation.
16:25:17-17:16:05 What we call Cajun music today is a mix of the same cultural aspects that
created the society. That means there are influences from France, Acadia, Spain, Germany,
Anglo American, black Creole, and there are also some Native American elements in there. Just
for example, there was a tradition of drums that came from Africa, and was reinforced by Native
Americans, and it made another kind of music, music that is less lyrical and more percussive.
18:43:15-19:04:28 Even between white and black people, we call each other Cajun. Until the
journalists started bringing barriers, it was called French music. It screams, it sings, the words
are simple, not too complicated, but it's our blood in the songs.
20:15:13-20:30:19 The first musical instruments we had were the violin, stringed instruments
that were familiar to people. Before that we preserved the idea of music through just our voices.
25:13:04-26:32:06 That's a beautiful song, who composed it?
The first time I heard it, it was Nome Douglass Bellor. He was a first cousin, he did arts in
school. I was young, and I don't really remember what he sang in, but my dad played the
accordion, and he says "Douglas made this, it's really a good song to listen to", but he says, "
when a musician makes music their whole lives they say, I like to make music for people to
dance to." That was true because sometimes Douglas would play like this. [plays music] It's not
good to dance to.
26:36:04-26:54:10 The accordion arrived without instructions. It didn't say on the box that this
instrument was made to play polka. We took the instrument out of the box and started trying to
make sounds that we had in our heads, that we preserved in our memories.
31:02:09-31:09:01 That's it. That's a breastplate that's just about done.
31:04:19-32:32:25 There was a period of deep change because of this Americanization that
started at the beginning of the century with the discovery of petrol, with English education, with
American nationalism; the economic crisis contributed to this as well. And very soon after,
during the 30’s, we began to hear the effects of this Americanization. And you can imagine,
feeling the need to become American as fast as possible with Texas as your neighbor. And so
Cajuns and Creoles started to imitate what was on the other side of the frontier, in Texas. And
what was popular over there was country music, western swing, and cowboy music.
33:41:08-33:50:00 That’s what you call a nice chair.
I’m not gonna want to get up.
35:03:04-35:37:09 Later, we started to see other influences because the 50’s were the birth of
rock and roll. Here in Louisiana we had lots of big players of rock and roll. Fats Domino was
from New Orleans, Jerry Lee Lewis was from Ferriday, The Big Bop were from Shreveport, so
there were a lot of early big names in rock and roll that came from here. We started seeing the
children of Cajun musicians turn towards rock and roll.
36:22:05-36:51:28 We give credit to Clifton Chenier because it’s him that traveled almost
everywhere, and he let us give back to the people, to the Creoles, something very important, a
style that was very different to the men who were playing traditional music. He even invented a
new word, it was zydeco
36:52:27 This van belonged to the king of zydeco, Clifton Chenier. Every time I pass by here I
can’t help but feel spoiled because he was such a big name. It hurts me to see his tools like this.
We’ve had a lot of time to think about Clifton Chenier. I pray for him, and wish that he’s in a
good place because he did a lot for the Creole world. Without Clifton Chenier zydeco is-well
there’s no zydeco without him.
39:13:24-41:19:08 I listened to a lot of blues, and there was an old musician who told me, “If
you can’t make them laugh, and you can’t make them bawl with your music, Well you’re not
touching them the way you should be.” But, I haven’t gotten anyone to ball yet, maybe one day
someone will decide to.
41:23:24-41:40:28 We started to see a new creativity in the musical community. They started to
compose new songs, they started to make new adaptations of old songs, and we started to see a
lot more vitality.
41:40:28-42:04:01 In Cajun music there are a lot of songs that talk about a woman who left her
husband, his heart is broken, he doesn’t know how he’s going to live. I try to make songs that
talk about other things. It’s not rock music, but at the same time it’s not the old music from way
back when, it’s my own songs.
46:35:13-46:38:20 He wanted to dance but, poor Johnny, he couldn’t dance.
48:07:10-48:36:28 My father played the accordion a little bit at home. He’d put powder on his
accordion, he played little parties well. My brother played the accordion a little bit, and my uncle
played a little bit, not enough to play bars. It was wonderful, every sunday we’d all get together
in the backyard, playing the accordion, we’d eat barbeque, rice dressing, it was nice.
48:37:00-49:16:02 It’s the reason I speak French, It’s the reason my brother speaks French, It’s
the reason we still have, today, kids in class, not a lot but still some who go to class in 1993,
there’s little kids in school in certain villages, who arrive at school speaking French, because
they have a grandpa, or a great grandpa or a great grandma, who doesn’t speak English, or who
holds onto the French language. And the children of these people keep speaking French because
of this, because of these familial ties which are so so strong.
49:24:19-49:55:15 When I started playing the accordion I was 45 years old. My mentor is called
Douglass Bouchard. He was a really great musician years ago, but he’s paralyzed in his left arm,
but he still plays with one hand. So one day I went to him and asked him to teach me to play the
accordion.
49:58:12-49:57:00 How old were you again when you started playing the accordion?
I was 9 years old. I was too weak to play the accordion on my knees, I was so young.
He was a great musician, but he’s still good with just one hand.
I just have one hand, this one I don’t use at all.
He’s paralyzed on one side but he showed me the keyboard. I told him the other day, he said,
“you can play zydeco.” I said “well I can play a little bit, but if I could do with two hands what
you do with one, I’d be all right.”
52:14:10-51:15:27 Thank you very much, thank you very much.
51:18:29- In the past we were ashamed to talk about zydeco, we were ashamed to talk about the
Creole. But now we’re appreciated all over the state and all over the country. Now we talk about
Creoles, now we talk about Cajuns, so, thank God for that.
