Accordion Dreams: A Journey into Cajun and Creole Music
Blair Kilpatrick
University Press of Mississippi, 2009
By Kristi Guillory
Blair Kilpatrick’s honest, touching and at-times comical memoir describing her foray into the Cajun and Creole music world as an adult is as lyrical and moving as the two-steps and waltzes she learned to sing throughout her journey. A self-described shy Midwesterner, Blair was turned on to Cajun music after a brief visit to New Orleans in the 1990s. Beyond the bright gaudy lights of Bourbon Street, she was drawn, like many, to the subtle sounds of the fiddle and the rhythmic groan of the accordion during an unexpected Swamp Tour. Blair began to frequent Acadiana on subsequent trips to Louisiana and delved deeper and deeper into the music that almost immediately moved her. She describes this experience as if she were instantly smitten and punch-drunk on Cajun sounds. Her story takes on mythical proportions as she meets her elder guide in Papa Joe, portends her future in dreams of playing the accordion, falls into the belly of the whale of self-doubt, finds an archetypal mentor in Danny Poullard and emerges from the dark swamp of self-doubt with an epic story to tell marked with gems of wisdom (Music is the child of your heart) and inspiration. She writes, “Cajun Music seemed to echo the very things I was feeling: sadness, loneliness, a desire to cry out in frustration and anger…You begin to feel lighter because the pain inside you has been drawn out, an now other voices, stronger voices, are helping you speak it.”
Perhaps Blair’s story is archetypical. Many players who have grown up outside the Cajun and Creole culture and were called to venture “inside” of it are among the strongest heroes and spokespersons (Anne Savoy, Charlie and Lynne Terr, Tracy Schwarz, Dirk Powell, Kevin Wimmer). They learn a deep appreciation for the music and the intense processes of learning with all the inherent joys and struggles. They begin their journeys as students and, always with a passionate nod to learning, become heroes and mentors to students of their own.
As part of the vibrant Cajun and Creole music scene of the San Francisco Bay Area, Blair finds community, family, love and a safe and comforting place to push her own boundaries, to let go and loose herself in the “rhythm lock”.
Hello Kristi,
Congratulations on the launch of the Cajun-Creole Music Spectator. What a great resource!
Thanks also for this lovely, thoughtful review of Accordion Dreams. I’m touched and honored by your words. You’ve helped me see some aspects of my own experience more clearly.
I’m so glad you listed some of those other people who discovered Cajun and Creole culture from “the outside.” They have been teachers and guides to so many people who came after them–including me. (Most of them are acknowledged in the book.)
I look forward to seeing old and new friends at the Louisiana Book Festival in Baton Rouge on October 16-17.
Lache pas!
Blair
Congratulations, Christi! You don’t remember me, but I communicated with you when you were still in highschool. I was DJ of a Cajun/Zydeco radio show called “Bayou Country” in Nevada City, CA. I was doing a program on female musicians of Louisiana French music.
If you have a mailing list I would appreciate being on it. Thanks & good luck.
Nice to see you! You can subscribe to the mailing list by typing in your email on the right side feedburner widget. Thanks!
Hi MIss Freida! I had the good fortune to see Kristi perform when she was in high school, back when Steve and I still lived in Chicago. She came for the U of Chicago Folk Festival, I think.
(Boy that makes me feel old. Even archetypal
Congratulations on the Grammy nomination, too, Kristi!
Blair