Squeeze Box Sexy

When I was growing up the nerdiest kids played the accordian.  There were very few of them, mind you, but those that took up the strange mini-organ and learned 'Beer Barrel Polka' were forever labelled and cast out from general society.  These kids were further out of the mainstream than even . . . me (gulp)! 

I remember the lake we lived on in Florida when I was a kid.  Among the 80 families who lived around the water was a German woman, a single mother -- which was unusual in those days -- who had extremely large cha-cha-bingos.  The combination of her large breasts, her German accent and the lack of a man in her life gave rise to all kinds of speculation about what she did in her spare time. 

Do you know:  the neighborhood boys would sometimes sneak into her dark side yard on summer evenings and wait for her to come into her bedroom and turn on the lights.  Someone once claimed to see her take her blouse off and then her bra through the not quite closed curtains of the window.  Neither I nor anyone I knew was ever so rewarded for the vigils we held beneath that window. 

Mrs. O -- as I'll call her --  played the accordian.  And she sometimes played it on her screened porch facing the lake.  The melodic honking of the thing rolled over the water and into evey other home on the lake.  Everyone thought it was weird but just passed it off as her being German.  She was probably a spy, too.

As time went on, accordion playing became more and more stupid.  I remember going up to visit my Mother in Law in Flint, Michigan and being taken to Smorgasboard restaurants where accordions were played.  They were silly there, too. 

But then, somewhere about 25 years ago, I stumbled into Cajun music and the accordion took on a whole new mystique.  I think it was first the Savoy -Ducet band that grabbed me . . . then Michael Ducet and Beausoleil.  But then I fell headlong in love with Wayne Toups and Jo-El Sonnier. 

Both are accordion playing Cajun wonders.  Both growl and scream their lyrics.  Both play a very muscular squeeze box.  I gather that Wayne and his band Zydecajun* are not held in lofty esteem by Cajun purists because their sound is a little too uptown electric and rock n' roll.  No matter.  Their stuff drives me nuts (it's impossible not to move), especially when Wayne sings in Arcadian-French patois. 

Jo-El, on the other hand is by all estimations the genuine article.  Short, dark, a little sweatty and with a vocal power that will not be denied, Sonnier has garnered considerable respect for his work as a singer and songwriter. 

Now, Stop. 

We could go on and on picking and dissecting this music and these musicians, but that's not the point.  The reason these two are so good is purely emotional -- not intellectual.  It's the places they take you when you turn off your thinking mind and surrender to the accordion.   

Muscular.  That's the word that keeps coming up for me. Both of these guys are well built, and I'm sure that's necessary for the aggressive style of playing they do.  Imagine what it takes to push and pull that thing out in front of you, singing at the top of your lungs at the same time for hour on hour.  Put power in the voice and have it rhasp and cry with deep soul, toss in a pair of tight jeans and a shirt unbuttoned to near the navel . . . and you have muscle.  Cajun muscle.

I have never seen either of these guys live, though I did see Jo-el Sonnier on David Sanborn's late night TV show years ago.  Sanborn called his guest 'The Ragin' Cajun' and Jo-el blew everyone away that night.   I have seen them play many times, however, in that great concert hall in my head.  When they play, it's more of a dance hall or a large BarBQue.  There are always dozens of couples doing that beautiful swirling Cajun waltz and many others getting quietly drunk around the room.   

There is a life and a joy about this music that is hard to find anywhere else.  This is music of the people, by the people, and for the people.  All you have to do to get it is to put a little on your CD player and get out one of Michael Ducet's famous smiling photos.  Look at his face.  Look in his eyes.  That's what I'm talking about. 

*Zydecajun is a train wreck between Cajun and Zydeco, the two forms of Arcadian music.  Sometimes the difference is hard to discern, especially for a smart ass white boy from Atlanta, like me, but Cajun is essentially white music where Zydeco is mostly black music.  Cajun is to Zydeco as Country is to Blues.  You can hear elements of each genre in the other.  In fact, if you took these four and shook them up in a bag, what would come out woud be pretty homogenous and listenable . . . .It'd be Wayne Toups and Zydecajun.