Jolie Blon

Here we go with the "I Gotta know" mania and it is all because of a Mary Chapin Carpenter song, "Down At The Twist and Shout" and all things cajun, Louisiana, and in the news.  In the lyrics one verse says:

Bring your mama, bring your papa, bring your sister too
They got lots of music and lots of room
When they play you a waltz from 1910
You gonna feel a little bit young again
Well you learned to dance with your rock'n'roll
You learned to swing with a do-si-do
But you learn to love at the fais-so-do
When you hear a little Jolie Blon

Now I did square dancing so I know about a do-si-do, but what is "fais so do" and "Jolie Blon"?  It turns out that a fais so do is a cajun dance party and Jolie Blon is the Cajun Waltz.  The oldest known recording of Jolie Blon is in 1929 but its roots go much deeper into the past.  The links hee take you to some truly interesting reading about the historical roots of the Acadians who moved from Canada to Louisiana in the 1700s. Now Louisiana has two great musical traditions of the Acadian folk music and Jazz that grew out of both free and slave blacks.

If you haven't been watching the HBO series Treme (pronounced Tre May) you are missing out on some fantastic music, a great story of memorable characters about a city rising from disaster. Now years after one tragedy still mired in politics, Louisiana confronts a new disaster as oil moves in to the Delta.