Bois Sec

[cornfed]

Zydeco music lost a great musician yesterday named Bois Sec Ardoin. He was pretty much a living legend and one of the last two or three old school creole accordionists around. This made him a tremendous resource in teaching old tunes as well as playing them himself and offering historical explanations for them.

Here's a link to a little video made of him in the 60's if anyones curious. He's videoed here with an old creole fiddler named Canray Fontenot who died about 10 years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QHfB2tEXuo

[Logo-Mechanix]

I will ahve to check that out when I get home Corn, it does'nt work here due to the firewall from hell. How old was he?

[cornfed]

He was 91 or 92. Pretty old!

[Logo-Mechanix]

I think it's amazing that most of those guys play right up until the end.

[mac.FINN]

Wait a minute... so his name was Dry Wood?

[cornfed]

His real name is Alphonse!

Here's the story of how he told someone he got his name.

An old white man would come every weekend when I was young and I'd wash his car for a little job. Boy, I was glad when I'd see that car coming, yeah. When I was big enough he would take me to learn how to work, you know, I didn't have no daddy. I would work with him, and he didn't work me too hard.…And you know, sometimes the rain would caught you in the fields, you know, you can't get to the barn before you get wet yourself. All the rest of the men, they'd wait until the rain started good, now they would run to the barn for that. Not me, I was spoiled, you know, the other men would let the rain cool them off…Well, he would come meet us at the barn after the rain had stopped-"Why you was dry and all the rest was wet?" He had an old tree that was dead, it was dry, you know. He said, "I'm gonna call you dry wood." And I keep that name. It was Alfred Veillon who gave me that name. He almost raised me. He lived around two miles from here.
-From Cajun Music: A Reflection of a People by Ann Allen Savoy. Bluebird Press, Inc. 1984.

[Ned]

That's a great story. I love how she kept his way of speech just as he said it. It really makes the story. :)

[urstwile]

That's a cool video, Cornfed. The first song sounds somewhat familiar. :rolleyes:

[cornfed]

That's the Eunice Two Step! He died in Eunice, too.

[urstwile]

I thought I recognized it. :)

[CamarotaDesign]

Wow Cornfed, Thats some beautiful music. I went and looked on www.emusic.com that I have a subscription with and turns out they have one of his Albums. Downloading the songs I really like right now. This is some great music.

I'm a big fan of old blues musicians. Like Mississippi John Hurt, Blind Willie Johnson, Skip JAmes, Son House.... I really get that vibe from listening to this.

I like, but not a big fan of bluegrass or contemporary zydeco music. But You've just made a fan out of me of Bois Sec and Canray. This stuff has soul.



You'd probably be interested in gumboot guitar and accordian from South Africa, I have some great stuff if you are interesed
in checking it out.

heres a link too: http://www.amazon.com/Gumboot-Guitar-Zulu-Street-Music/dp/B0000C50A2/ref=sr_1_1/104-8527549-4403162?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1179444398&sr=8-1

Let me know if you'd like to listen to some other stuff.

[Samakimoto Graphics]

Nice story.

Will look him up.

[Logo-Mechanix]

It's also really cool to do drawings and paintings of these old time musicians, they just exude soul and character.

[cornfed]

Wow Cam! That was a cool link! I listened to all the samples they had! I love the spelling of concertina in guitar and kossetina! Reminds me of some music I've heard from the Seychelle Islands mixed with a bluesy twist! Very nice!

I don't care for contemporary zydeco much either. It incorporates the electric guitar and doesn't include fiddles. The type of music that Bois Sec and Canray (Fontenot) play is really a pre-zydeco music sometimes called La-la music and it's mostly played by old creole people. There are a handful of bands left that play this style - mine being one of them. Canray was a wonderful fiddle player with a really contagious smile.

If you like them, you would probably like Amedee Ardoin, too. He was beaten severely after returning from a white house dance (he was black) and ended up mentally challenged after that. He died in a mental hospital in Pineville, LA.

Here's a link to a good Canray cd. I think my favorite tune on it is Shoo, Black. But they're all good.
http://www.arhoolie.com/titles/381.shtml

Another cool fiddle player is Dennis McGee. He died, too. But he could play some great fiddle! A lot of fiddle players around here try to play exactly like he did so they can keep the style he played alive.

[Logo-Mechanix]

I love the fiddle, I have never played but a frined of mine who is a very talented musician says it is one of the hardest instruments to master.

[CamarotaDesign]

Sweet! emusic also has that Canray CD, booya! (I'm tellin you cornfed, you gotta check it out, it has so many awesome, old obscure artists, it's perfect for people who like to travel off the beaten path for music, they also have the gumboot CD, just check it out, and start typing in your favorite artists)

I checked out some zydeco recordings. I also read up and found out some info about Bois Sec's brother (Ardoin) Thats such a sad story.

I've been downloading some stuff from compilations from emusic. I found another artist I really like, Ambrose Sam, I'll check out those other names you mentioned as well. I liked Shoo black, but it's got more cohesive country/bluegrass sound to it with a bass and everything, and I think it's nice, but I really dig the foot stomping and singing that is almost like a cry, everything is just so raw and powerful it's a trip to listen to.

So far, I think my favorite song is "Les Barres de la Prison" (The {Prison Bars) but I also love Jolie Bassette and Les Blues du Voyageur.

Wow, I'm really glad you posted this thread, you just opened a new door for me.

[morea]

I love the story about how he got his name, thanks for sharing!

Can't wait to check out his stuff... sounds like he loved what he did. It's great to be able to celebrate a life like that.

[cornfed]

I'm so glad you're liking it, Cam! I have a list of cd titles and artist to send you but I can't seem to stop getting called away from my computer!

Oh, Bois Sec and Amedee are cousins! Ardoins live all over around here and they're all related in one way or another!

[CamarotaDesign]

Ohh yeah, thats right, cousin my bad, I wasn't remembering correctly.

I read that the way Bois Sec got his name was because he was always the first to run into the woods to keep dry from a thunderstorm in farm feilds? Is that true? because the translation for "Bois Sec" according to Google is "Drink Dry"

[urstwile]

Cam, Courtney posted that story, I think in an earlier post.

Also, bois is French for wood. :)

[CamarotaDesign]

god I'm retarded. I missed that post, im just skimming through everything trying to get enough stuff to comment on so I can get to 2000 post by June 15th... to make Mo happy ;)

and hey, why does google language tool say "bois" means drink?


We have a winery in sonoma county called Clos du Bois so I figured it was drink.

edited again.... ok, I just googled "Clos du Bois" and it means "feild of wood"

what the hell google!!!!

[morea]

boire is the french verb for "to drink", so "je bois" would mean "I drink".

bois is the french noun for "wood"

[CamarotaDesign]

well well well. Arent you just a little french smarty pants ;)

But seriously, thanks for the info. You have some education on French language, right?

[morea]

yes, and I am currently living in Quebec, so it's not like I have a lot of choice. ;)

[urstwile]

I know a little French too, Cam. But I looked it up in the translation widget on my Mac and it said wood. Mo's right about the verb and conjugation though, so that's probably why google gave you that as the definition.

[CamarotaDesign]

Cornfed - Just found the music of Amade Ardoin' Great stuff, I really like his raw style. It's also nice to hear straight up gumboot accordian with nothing else but his wailin' voice. Great stuff, I'm really glad you posted that link a few weeks ago.

Last night my friend came over for a jam, we were playing piano and guitar. I use a Roland HP-201 digital piano (with hammer action baby!) that can split keyboard into 2 sound sections, so the bottom half I use for bass rhythm with the acoustic bass patch and the top half is piano that I do melodies solos and harmonies on. The acoustic bass recording is excellent, really sounds close to a real acoustic bass.

S we were jamming to a walking blues in the key C and it was sounding good, my friend is geat at improvising on the guitar but doesnt know how to read sheet music, and barely knows which keys are what... but he still sounds great when he solos, just can't really play rhythm yet, so I have to cover with the Roland bass.

I want to try incorporate some of the zydeco sounds I hear in Bois sec, primarily the sound from Les Blues de Voyaguer and Barres Les Prison. I think it would be very easy to get that bluesy zydeco sound in using my harmonica, but first he needs to learn some riffs. We're working on it. I'm rather interested in getting an accordian now, but I wanted to get an upright bass first so we'll see.

Anyways, just wanted to let you know that, and I've been listening to my Zydeco everyday for the last 2 weeks now, I think I'm gonna need to take a trip to New Orleans soon.

[cornfed]

Thats awesome!! You should really come to south Louisiana for the zydeco sound. New Orleans is great, but the real deal, like Bois Sec is here in Lafayette and the surrounding areas. I've been meaning to post some cd's that I think you might like but my kids have been running me around like a 2 bit whore for the past few weeks.

Here's a few links to some accordion makers around here. I can say with a great deal of confidence that they all make some fine, fine instruments. I think they're in the range of about $1500-2000. A lot of accordion players around here like to get a bflat accordion. They make them in whatever key you want, but the bflat gives off that nice bluesy sound.

http://www.savoymusiccenter.com/
This is a link to Marc Savoys music center. He's a great accordion player. His wife plays, too. His shop has a cajun/creole jam every Saturday morning, too. If you suck, you have to sit towards the outside of the jam circle. The better you are, the closer in to the center you're allowed to get! Its an unspoken rule at every jam around here, actually. His accordions are awesome.

http://www.accordions.com/bonteecajun/
This link is to Larry Millers site. His site sucks, but his accordions are wonderful. Larry travels around a lot to different festivals giving accordion and t-fer (cajun/creole triangle) demonstrations and sales. He makes some really nice ones too.

http://martinaccordions.com/
This is a link to Jr. Martins site. Once again, the site sucks, but the accordions are great. He's here in Lafayette. I have a friend that has a martin accordion. He went in and customised his wood, picked the stain color and everything. It turned out beautiful and the sound is sweet!

All three of these guys are really top notch. They know the sound that creole/cajun/zydeco musicians are going for and they know just how to peg it. Actually, though, you're not really enjoying zydeco music. The rest of the world calls it zydeco but when you get more specific, you're listening to la-la music. It's a generation or two before the modern zydeco that people refer to today. Zydeco sort of evolved from la-la music!

I'd love to hear a sample of what you guys are playing!

[CamarotaDesign]

thanks for the links cornfed!

There is a "creole beginner's blues accordian" for about $500 on savoy. I'd say thats probably where I'd want to start, I'm definitely looking for the old time sound.

I'll see if we can get a recording done, I have to warn you it's not very professional, but there are flashes of brilliance :)