This is where
we get to listen to some great music from days gone by.
Today’s
music comes to us from 1952.
Wikipedia tells us this about today’s
tune: "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)" is a song written and recorded by
American country music singer Hank Williams that was first released in July
1952. Named for a Creole and Cajun dish, jambalaya, it spawned numerous cover
versions and has since achieved popularity in several different music genres.
Williams began writing the song while listening to the Cajuns talk about food
on the Hadacol Caravan bus. With a melody based on the Cajun song "Grand
Texas", some sources, including AllMusic, claim that the song was co-written
by Williams and Moon Mullican, with Williams credited as sole author and
Mullican receiving ongoing royalties. Williams' biographer Colin Escott
speculates that it is likely Mullican wrote at least some of the song and
Hank's music publisher Fred Rose paid him surreptitiously so that he wouldn't
have to split the publishing with Moon's label King Records. Williams' song
resembles "Grand Texas" in melody only. "Grand Texas" is a song about a lost
love, a woman who left the singer to go with another man to "Big Texas";
"Jambalaya", while maintaining a Cajun theme, is about life, parties and
stereotypical food of Cajun cuisine. The narrator leaves to pole a pirogue
down the shallow water of the bayou, to attend a party with his girlfriend
Yvonne and her family. At the feast they have Cajun cuisine, notably
Jambalaya, crawfish pie and filé gumbo, and drink liquor from fruit jars.
Yvonne is his "ma cher amio", which is Cajun French for "my good friend" or
more likely to mean "my girlfriend." Technically in Cajun culture "ma cher
amio" means my dear, which refers to Yvonne in this song.
See you again soon! Share with me your thoughts about this
theme. If you have a favorite oldies song or artist, let me know and I’d
be happy to feature them.
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Always liked Fogerty's cover of this.
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