Cajun band Feufollet visited WYSO’s studios for a live interview with Midday Music host Evan Miller ahead of their Feb. 21 performance in Yellow Springs at the Foundry Theater. The Lafayette, Louisiana band features Chris Stafford (vocals, accordion, guitar), Kelli Jones (vocals, fiddle, guitar), Andrew Toups (keyboards), Jim Kolacek (drums), and Philippe Billeaudeaux (bass). In the interview, the band discussed the history and performance of Cajun music, a genre with stylistic origins in the ballads of French-speaking Acadians who settled in Louisiana in the 18th century. They also performed stripped down, violin and accordion-dominant renditions of several songs live in WYSO’s studios. Feufollet began the interview by performing the “The Old Home Waltz,” a song written and recorded by Church Point, Louisiana singer Shirley Bergeron in 1962.
Feufollet accordionist Chris Stafford told Evan that despite its unique cultural heritage, Cajun music has long existed in conversation with mainstream, primarily anglophone strands of American music, like country and rock and roll. “This style of music has always been influenced by popular American forms of music,” Stafford told Evan. “A lot of it is basically country music with an accordion, and it's in French; the same themes, a lot of the same melodies. Then a lot of rock and roll has crept into it.” Fiddle player Kelli Jones said that singing French versions of popular English-language songs was often a staple for Cajun performers in Louisiana dance halls:
“I've heard older people say that at the dance halls sometimes wouldn't hire you again if you didn't know a couple of popular songs off the radio, even if you were just translating them into French as you go for the audience. It's always been really influenced by the radio and what's popular, and putting it through the Cajun filter.”
Feufollet, founded in 1995, continues the tradition of musical hybridization. Though the musicians are trained performers of traditional Cajun music, they incorporate rock elements, like a drum backbeat, into some of their songs. Yet the band retains an unmistakably Cajun sound, partially due to the presence of one instrument which has become nearly synonymous with genre: the diatonic accordion. Chris Stafford gave a demonstration of his own diatonic accordion live on air. “It’s essentially an accordion, but it's similar to a harmonica in the way that the harmonica has ten holes,” he told Evan. “Whenever you push in one way it's one note, and you pull out the other way, it's a different note—exactly like a harmonica.” While accordion was only incorporated into Cajun music in the late 19th century, Stafford said the instrument’s reedy tone and penetrating volume quickly made it a dance hall mainstay.
“It was a later arrival to the music; the fiddle was kind of the first lead instrument in the music. And then when the accordion made its way to Louisiana, it was super loud and rhythmic and people just couldn't get enough of it. They say that it's what makes the Cajuns dance.”
Feufollet performed at the Foundry Theater on Feb. 21, 2024. Concertgoers also enjoyed gumbo cooked by WYSO Louisiana Byways host Linzay Young. Feufollet’s 2015 full-length record, Two Universes, is available on major streaming platforms. To follow the band’s tour and releases, visit feufollet.netor follow them on Instagram. A full schedule of the Foundry Theater's 2024 events is available online.
Text by Peter Day, adapted from an interview recorded by Evan Miller on Feb. 21, 2024.
