Saturday, July 23, 2011

Wade's Waltz

Confession: I watch Discovery's Swamp People.  It's about alligator fishermen in Louisiana and Florida.  It's everything you want it to be: alligators, drama, danger, that smooth Cajun accent (ça c'est bon!), and lots of gumbo and fried frogs.  But there's one big problem that drives me crazy in every episode.  The opening and closing credits are backed by a fiddler who's playing KENTUCKY old-time style.  Oooh, it makes my blood boil. *



If you know of only one Cajun fiddler, it's probably Michael Doucet.  He's got that unique sound and his iconic voice that melts you like a hot day in the bayou.  He plays and sings with the band Beausoleil.

So even though Cajun music is way down on the list of styles I consider myself ok at, I still love it.  So today, a Cajun waltz from Mr. Doucet's solo album written by Wade Frugé.



*It seems like everybody has their "thing" that drives them crazy at the movies... My doctor uncle can't stand it when people die from perfectly treatable diseases in movies.  My freshman chemistry professor hated it when people handled gold like it was weightless, like in The Italian Job. ("Do you have any idea the specific gravity of gold?!")  Well.  I hate it when the music is effed up.  Por ejemplo:

  • When the actors aren't really playing (I'm talking about YOU Russell Crowe!)
  • When the actors ARE playing but it doesn't match up with the music (like every 18th-century period dance scene ever filmed)
  • When there's anything wrong with the instruments that would make them, in real life, unplayable. (IE the cello in the opening scene of Pirates of the Caribbean HAS NO STRINGS.)
  • When the music is completely misplaced, like the aforementioned Swamp People's Kentucky fiddle.  (As a side note, the narrator to that show has an annoyingly fake Texas-ish accent that also drives me crazy.  Texas  ≠ Louisiana.)

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