Cajun music, an emblematic music of Louisiana played by the Cajuns, is rooted in the ballads of the French-speaking Acadians of Canada. Although they are two separate genres, Cajun music is often mentioned in tandem with the Creole-based zydeco music. Both are from southwest Louisiana and share French and African origins. These French Louisiana sounds have influenced American popular music for many decades, especially country music, and have influenced pop culture through mass media, such as television commercials.
BeauSoleil is a Cajun band from Louisiana, United States.
Swamp pop is a music genre indigenous to the Acadiana region of south Louisiana and an adjoining section of southeast Texas. Created in the 1950s by young Cajuns and Creoles, it combines New Orleans–style rhythm and blues, country and western, and traditional French Louisiana musical influences. Although a fairly obscure genre, swamp pop maintains a large audience in its south Louisiana and southeast Texas homeland, and it has acquired a small but passionate cult following in the United Kingdom, and Northern Europe
The Flatlanders are an American country band from Lubbock, Texas, United States, founded in 1972 by Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Joe Ely and Butch Hancock. The group garnered little success during their brief original incarnation from 1972 to 1973, but when the individual members found success in their solo careers, interest in The Flatlanders was rekindled with the band reuniting several times since. An earlier incarnation of this band was known as The Double Mountain Fork Of The Brazos River Boys.
"Jambalaya (On the Bayou)" is a song written and recorded by American country music singer Hank Williams that was first released in July 1952. It is Williams' most covered song. Named for a Creole and Cajun dish, jambalaya, it spawned numerous cover versions and has since achieved popularity in several different music genres.
Songbook is a 2002 collection of 26 essays by English writer Nick Hornby about songs and the particular emotional resonance they carry for him. In the UK, Sony released a stand-alone CD, A Selection of Music from 31 Songs, featuring 18 songs. The hardcover edition of Songbook, published in the US by McSweeney's and illustrated by Marcel Dzama, includes a CD with 11 of the songs featured in the book.
Al Berard (1960–2014) was a Cajun musician, recording artist, and composer in addition to being considered a world-renowned cajun fiddler.
Robert Troy Kimball is an American singer and songwriter best known as the original and longtime frontman of the rock band Toto from 1977 to 1984 and again from 1998 to 2008. Kimball has also performed as a solo artist and session singer.
The term Creole music is used to describe both the early folk or roots music traditions of rural Creoles of Louisiana.
Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys are an American Cajun band from southern Louisiana. The band formed in 1988 and has since recorded 10 albums, nine of which are on Rounder Records.
Joseph Denton "Jay" Miller was an American record producer and songwriter from Louisiana, whose Cajun, swamp blues, and swamp pop recordings influenced American popular culture.
Bob Livingston is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, bass player, and a founding member of The Lost Gonzo Band. Livingston was a key figure in the Cosmic Cowboy, progressive country and outlaw country movements that distinguished the Austin, Texas music scene in the 1970s. Over the years, Bob Livingston has gained a reputation as a band leader, solo artist, session musician and sideman in folk, Americana and country music. He has toured without stop for 47 years, and is one of the most experienced and world traveled musicians in all of Texas music. Livingston's CD, Gypsy Alibi, released by New Wilderness Records in 2011, won the "Album of the Year" at the Texas Music Awards. In January 2016, Livingston was inducted into the Texas Music Legends Hall of Fame in 2016 and into the West Texas Music Walk of Fame in 2018. Howlin' Dog Records released Livingston's latest CD, Up The Flatland Stairs, January 10, 2018.
Dewey Balfa was an American Cajun fiddler and singer who contributed significantly to the popularity of Cajun music. Balfa was born near Mamou, Louisiana. He is perhaps best known for his 1964 performance at the Newport Folk Festival with Gladius Thibodeaux and Vinus LeJeune, where the group received an enthusiastic response from over seventeen thousand audience members. He sang the song "Parlez Nous à Boire" in the 1981 cult film Southern Comfort, in which he had a small role.
Ginny Hawker and Tracy Schwarz are an American folk music duo known for performing traditional music from the early American canon of bluegrass, gospel, and old time music. The duo, however, on occasion does record original songs and music by contemporary songwriters. They live in the small village of Tanner, West Virginia. Tracy Schwarz was a member of the New Lost City Ramblers.
Terri Ann Hendrix is an American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and independent artist who has been writing and performing an eclectic mix of Americana genre, encompassing folk, pop, country, blues, and jazz, since 1990. Since 1998 Hendrix has been based in and near San Marcos, Texas, living as of 2021 in nearby Martindale, after growing up in San Antonio, Texas.
Canray Fontenot was an American Creole fiddle player, who has been described as "the greatest Creole Louisiana French fiddler of our time."
Cajun music has its roots based in the ballads of the French-speaking Acadians of Canada, and in country music.
David Greely is a professional fiddler from south Louisiana.
Inez Catalon was an American Creole ballad singer, who was one of the most well-known performers of the genre known as Louisiana "home music". These are a cappella versions of ballads and love songs, drinking songs, game songs, lullabies and waltzes performed by women in the home, passed down from earlier generations to provide entertainment for the family before radio and television existed. Home music is not considered part of the public performance repertoire of Cajun and zydeco music because the songs were sung in the home by women, rather than in the dance halls of southwestern Louisiana which featured almost exclusively male performers.
