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No collection of early cajun or folk music would be complete without "The Early Recordings of Leo Soileau" CD, on Yazoo 2041. Pick it up if you can! Ye yaille! All four Soileau-LaFleur cuts and 15 more, featuring Soileau's duets with Moïse Robin, and a couple with Elius Soileau, his cousin! These tracks were all recorded 1928-1929, so that should give you an idea on sound quality. Not for the Britney and Justin crowd! Mais non!
It is the hope of your host, an earnest fan, that you enjoy what you hear here. Even better that you may be filled with an urge to add this music to your permanent collection, on CD.
Leo Soileau and Meus LaFleur were a performing duo, who played fiddle and accordion, respectively, originating from Evangeline Parish in Louisiana.
In the late 20's, the Victor label, who we now know as RCA, was looking to compete with Columbia Records. Columbia had just cut loose on the market the first Cajun records ever, tunes by Joe Falcon (such as "Allons à Lafayette") and it was this competition that gave many local musicians from the area an opportunity to leave their indeliable mark on wax. Soileau and LaFleur, for example, got to go to Atlanta, GA, and on October 19, 1928, stood in front of the Victor microphone.
The duo cut two singles during that visit, which you'll find here on this page for your listening pleasure. These two 78RPM discs had the distinction of being the first Cajun recordings with fiddle, as Joe Falcon's featured his accordion accompanied only by his wife's sparse rhythm guitar.
"Mama Where You At" is undoubtedly the best known of the early cajun records. The song was written by LaFleur, and was to his mother, whom he never knew, who abandoned him when he was not even seven months old. In it's lyrics, he expresses his wishes to finally see her before she died. As the story goes, he hoped to take his earnings from the session ($100 total for the four songs) and use them to locate her. This never came to fruition, sadly.
Back home in Basile, just a mere eight days after cutting his only recordings, LaFleur was killed in the early hours of October 27, 1928. He was just 22. LaFleur had a reputation of being a loyal friend to those who knew him, and that loyalty got him killed. In a honky-tonk that Soileau & LaFleur were playing in, were two local moonshiners who'd come to talk business with a man named Kossuth Manuel. A squirmish ensued between these men and the owner of the establishment, LaFleur's friend Alex Bellon. Kossuth Manuel pulled a gun and shot Bellon several times, although Bellon managed to escape to find a hiding place beneath a truck. LaFleur, panicking at what was happening, ran to his friend's side, Manuel opening fire on him. He was dead instantly. Bellon died shortly after. Manuel opened fire on Soileau also, who in the knick of time ducked back into the honky-tonk. Not surprisingly, the memories of this event plagued Soileau for the rest of his life.
With the gun of Kossuth Manuel was taken the life of what appeared to be one of the most ambitious, young musicians of that time. LaFleur had not led a happy life, and his life ended with him a victim in a senseless honky-tonk brawl. A senseless event which almost claimed the life of the also-talented Leo Soileau.
Soileau soldiered on, playing mostly with Moïse Robin at his side, also cutting records with his cousin Elius Soileau, until he more or less left the scene in the 40's, having previously switched gears to play string band music. He died on August 2, 1980. He was 76.
In the 1970's, an elderly woman named Zola LaFleur finally came forward to admit that, in fact, Meus LaFleur was the son whom she'd abandoned.
These recordings heard here represent that intense energy that is still very much present in our modern day Cajun music. Granted that through the years Cajun music has become passé, then chic, and in the process lost its soul and its performance becoming a sheer novelty. Although genuine performances have become little more than just tribute, that spark of energy is still very much present among some dedicated devoteés.
Even some 78 years on after these records were waxed, the pain and anguish of a man such as Meus LaFleur still clearly resonates in the soul of the listener, through the crackling and hissing inherent in the day's recording methods.