All three of the Country Music Foundation's Cajun music anthologies are important, well-assembled overviews of early commercial recordings of the music, although the scope is limited to discs cut for Victor/Bluebird. Vol. 2 has a few well-known names like the Falcon Trio, Hackberry Ramblers and Nathan Abshire, but is mostly devoted to efforts by artists that never became recognizable names outside of their region. This is mostly in the raw, accordion-dominated waltz-timed style typical of early Cajun recordings, but there ...
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All three of the Country Music Foundation's Cajun music anthologies are important, well-assembled overviews of early commercial recordings of the music, although the scope is limited to discs cut for Victor/Bluebird. Vol. 2 has a few well-known names like the Falcon Trio, Hackberry Ramblers and Nathan Abshire, but is mostly devoted to efforts by artists that never became recognizable names outside of their region. This is mostly in the raw, accordion-dominated waltz-timed style typical of early Cajun recordings, but there are some surprising deviations along the way, like Arteleus Mistric's solo harmonica arrangement of "You Belong to Me" and Floyd Shreve's "Lonesome Blues" (which sounds closer to Jimmie Rodgers than early Cajun music). Happy Fats' "Joilie Schvr Rouge," as the latest of the tracks (from 1941), is graced by a steel guitar and looks forward to post-war country music. ~ Richie Unterberger, Rovi
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