The Balfa Brothers

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The Balfa Brothers
Ray Abshire playing with The Balfa Brothers at the Festival Acadian in Lafayette - 1974
Ray Abshire playing with The Balfa Brothers at the Festival Acadian in Lafayette - 1974
Background information
Origin Louisiana , United States
Genres Cajun
Labels Swallow , Sonet , Valcour
Past members Dewey Balfa , Will Balfa, Rodney Balfa, and Hadley Fontenot

The Balfa Brothers (or Les Freres Balfa ) were an American cajun music ensemble. [1] Its members were five brothers; Dewey on fiddle, Will on fiddle, Rodney on guitar, harmonica, and vocals, Burkeman on triangle and spoons, and Harry on Cajun accordion .

History [ edit ]

The brothers first played together at family gatherings in the 1940s. Their father, Charles Balfa, a sharecropper, had played fiddle and was a singer. [1] Along with Hadley Fontenot, an accordionist and acquaintance of the family, they made their first recordings in 1951. The 78rpm single was "La Valse de Bon Baurche" b/w "Le Two Step de Ville Platte", recorded at their house. After this Dewey went on to a successful solo career, recording on his own and with many ensembles. [1]

Adopting the name Balfa Brothers in 1967, Dewey, Rodney, Will, Hadley Fontenot, and Dewey's daughter Nelda started touring folk festivals and European venues, playing Cajun music at a time in which its impact on American music had largely been forgotten. They made their first new recordings that year, and played at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City . [1]

They released several albums and appeared in the 1972 documentary Spend it All . [1] Over time they experimented with blending traditional Cajun music with more modern orchestral sounds. They continued together until 1979; that year Rodney and Will died in an auto accident . [1] In 1980, Dewey's wife died of trichinosis . Following further lineup changes, the group continued under the name a few years later, and an ensemble continued to perform even after Dewey died in 1992. [1]

The Balfa Brothers together with Marc Savoy appear playing "Parlez-nous a Boire" towards the end of the 1981 Walter Hill film, Southern Comfort . Their song "La Danse de Mardi Gras" appears on the soundtracks for the 1992 film Passion Fish and the 2012 film Beasts of the Southern Wild and Serenity (2019 film) . It also appeared in a commercial for Carling Black Label Lager. [2]

Two of the Balfa Brothers, along with the late Cajun accordionist Danny Poulard, are briefly in the movie Garlic Is As Good As Ten Mothers, a 1980 documentary film about garlic directed by Les Blank.

Discography [ edit ]

Allie Young, Dewey Balfa, Dick Richard and Rodney Balfa at the Library of Congress, 1977.
  • The Balfa Brothers Play Traditional Cajun Music ( Swallow Records , 1967)
  • The Cajuns ( Sonet Records , 1972)
  • The Good Times are Killing Me (Swallow Records, 1972)
  • The Balfa Brothers Play Traditional Cajun Music Vol. 2 (1974)
  • J'ai Vu le Loup, Le Renard et la Belette (1976, re-released Rounder Records , 1988)
  • The Balfa Brothers and Nathan Abshire: The 1970 NYC Cajun Concert ( Field Recorders Collective , 2008)
  • The Balfa Family: A Retrospective - Festivals Acadiens et Creoles 1977-2010 ( Valcour Records , 2012) [3]

See also [ edit ]

References [ edit ]

  1. ^ a b c d e f g Colin Larkin , ed. (1997). The Virgin Encyclopedia of Popular Music (Concise ed.). Virgin Books . p. 83. ISBN   1-85227-745-9 .
  2. ^ "Carling Black Label Lager commercial" . YouTube . Archived from the original on 2021-12-21 . Retrieved October 18, 2019 .
  3. ^ "Valcour Records" . Valcour Records . Retrieved 2019-11-21 .

External links [ edit ]

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