How Different Kinds of Music Got Their Names

How Different Kinds of Music Got Their NamesLudwig von Beethoven (1779-1827), German composer of symphonies, chamber music, concertos and piano sonatas, once said, Music is a higher revelation than philosophy.Ever since I heard Joe and Cleoma Falcons recording of Lafayette, and a Jimmie Rodgers record on a neighbors graphophone in Johnson Cove, Ive been hooked on country and Cajun music. At that time country music was known as hillbilly music - the year was 1929, and I was very young.Ive not only had great pleasure in listening to music, but Ive also always had a great interest in the history of the music and how different kinds of music got their names. How did the music of the rural South get to be known as hillbilly music? According to Archie Green in an article in the Journal of American Folklore, the word hillbilly has been in print since at least 1900 as a catchall designation for the southern backwoods inhabitants. Not until 1925, however, was the term used in association with the music of the rural South. It can be traced to a recording session in New York City, January 15, 1925 at the Okeh Studio. A string band composed of people from North Carolina and Virginia recorded six songs. Being they had no name for their group, their leader, vocalist Al Hopkins, asked Ralph Peer to find a suitable name for the band. Peer chose the name Hillbillies. Before that time, the music was simply known as hill country tunes, old time music, etc. In 1932 Tex Ritters songs became known as western, and in the early 1940s, Ernest Tubb, Red Foley, and other southern musicians influenced Decca Records to adopt the term country music. By June 1949 Billboard magazine began listing country music popularity charts under country or country & western.The music we know as bluegrass was not always called by that name. I remember when we used to call it mountain music. Actually bluegrass music became known as such in the late 1940s it got its name from Bill Monroe and his Bluegrass Boys. In his book Country Music USA, Bill C. Malone observes: Texas musical culture, prior to urbanization of the post-1920s period, was produced by the southern heritage. Texas dwellers used substantially the same instruments common to the rest of the South and sang in a manner similar to other southerners. The author continues, But despite its close cultural affiliation with the South, Texas had a culture all its own a culture produced by the mingling of diverse ethnic strains: southern White, Negro, German, Mexican and Louisiana Cajun. In this heterogeneous society musical styles flowed from one group to another. Rural music was prevalent and pervasive, but it was not necessarily equivalent to the music produced in the Southeast or Deep South.Of course, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed coined the term Rock and Roll in 1954 and the rock & roll craze began - just about the same time swamp pop was born in the Bayou State. And swamp pop pioneers such as Warren Storm, Rod Bernard, Clint West, Tommy McClain, Johnny Allan, and others are still going strong today. The music we know as zydeco was first known as La-La by the French-speaking black Creoles of southwest Louisiana. Zydeco gets its name from haricot, the French word for string bean, and especially from the Cajun/Creole song: Les Haricots Sont Pas Saler (The String Beans are not Salty). The late Clifton Chenier, the undisputed King of Zydeco, recorded the song and he was instrumental in getting La-La music to be thereafter known as zydeco. Zydeco should never be confused with black Creole music. Certainly one of the prairies of southwestern Louisianas best composers/musicians was an uneducated black Creole accordion player named Amede Ardoin, who was born in the Basile-Elton area in 1898. Amede Ardoin recorded for the Brunswick label in the late 1920s classics like La Valse de Grand Gueydan, and Le Two-Step dElton. The diminutive accordionist and vocalist later recorded for the Bluebird label La Valse Des Amities, Les Blues de les Voyageurs, and the very beautiful Oberlin, from which Iry Lejeune later made Ti Monde.Even though segregation was a fact of life in Acadiana, as it was in the rest of the South, fiddler Dennis McGee and Amede played as a team at fais-do-dos and dancehalls. When Octave Fuselier opened his dancehall near the courthouse in Ville Platte in 1929, Dennis and Amede were chosen to play and they performed to a sellout crowd. The late Cajun fiddler and vocalist Leo Soileau, a music legend himself who was born in 1904, was once asked to name the three best accordion players he had known. Without hesitation he answered, Meus Lafleur, Amede Ardoin, and Iry Lejeune. It is ironic that the three Lafleur named met tragic deaths. Meus Lafleur, at the age of 22, was shot and killed on October 28, 1928 by Kosseuth Manuel at a honky-tonk near Basile. Amede Ardoin, in his early 40s, died in a mental institution in Pineville from blows he had received from a white man. This man had become infuriated at a fais-do-do when a young white woman had given Amede a handkerchief to wipe the sweat off his brow. Iry Lejeune was killed in a traffic accident between Eunice and Basile on October 8, 1955. Lejeune, who was born October 27, 1928 (a few hours before Meus Lafleur was killed), had played a gig with J.B. Fuselier and on the way home their vehicle had a flat tire. J.B. was changing the tire when a car, driven by a Texan, struck their vehicle. Iry Lejeune was killed instantly and Fuselier was seriously injured. Iry died nine days before his 27th birthday.Cajun songs run the gamut from the silly to the very sorrowful La Cravate a Zic et Zac, and La Pistache a Tante Nana to Chere Mom and Jai Passe Devant ta Porte. Like country music (The John T. Scopes Trial), some Cajun songs recounted significant events such as LAnnee de Cinquante-Sept. World War 2 produced country music songs such as Elton Britts Theres a Star Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere, Roy Acuffs Cowards Over Pearl Harbor, Stars & Stripes Over Iwo Jima by Bob Wills, and Ernest Tubbs Soldiers Last Letter. The Cajuns had War Widow Waltz and other war songs. T