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[falcanary]

Came here to read the comments.   Saw a few things so I decided to jump in quickly.  Just a few technicalities.

"Cleoma and Joe Falcon recorded just after him and the continuity is there."

I assume you mean Joe and Cleoma recorded after Ardoin recorded.   Joe and Cleoma recorded for Columbia on 27 April 1928.   Ardoin didn't recording until a year and a half later during a Columbia session on 9 December 1929.

""I have little substantiation, but i feel a very big reason the accordion came into popularity in south Louisiana, and the reason Cajun music sounds like it does today, is because the black population got a hold of it. I think the percussive and syncopative rhythms you hear on old style cajun recordings came from them."

Do other Cajuns share your thoughts on this. ?"

Yes, .....for most people that bury themselves in the old early music.   As a student, I too came away with this same conclusion.   In fact, it's one of the reasons why Acadian music doesn't sound like Cajun music.   They have fiddles.  They have 1 row accordions.  They have French lyrics.   But they don't have the Louisiana experience to rely on.  They don't have the same cultural mixture that created the sound which matured into what we have today.      I'll even make a bold claim:  Over half of the early Cajun music (1928-1960) has it's roots somewhere in the Afro-Creole culture.   Over half!     If someone would have told me this 5 years ago, I would have laughed at them.  Today, this doesn't sound so absurd to me anymore.

"They used to all be made in Saxony, including the Sterlings and the Monarchs, which were made (for different importers) in the same factory. I'm not aware of any evidence to suggest they were playing Hohner accordions before WW2, but afterwards there was nothing else available."

I was told the Eagle Brand Specials were in a different factory and lasted much longer.  Any truth in this?

"Some of the very old fiddlers when I was a kid, my great grandfather one of them, thought the accordion destroyed the beautiful old cajun music.  "

I agree with this.  I truly believe there was a subset of Cajun musicians in the 1920s that thought the accordion was out of place.   That's such a counter-intuitive thing to think today in Louisiana, but it makes alot of sense back then.

I'll go back to eating my popcorn now.
http://img.michaeljacksonspictures.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/popcorn.gif

WF

[bellowpin]

Came here to read the comments.   Saw a few things so I decided to jump in quickly.  Just a few technicalities.

"Cleoma and Joe Falcon recorded just after him and the continuity is there."

I assume you mean Joe and Cleoma recorded after Ardoin recorded.   Joe and Cleoma recorded for Columbia on 27 April 1928.   Ardoin didn't recording until a year and a half later during a Columbia session on 9 December 1929.

""I have little substantiation, but i feel a very big reason the accordion came into popularity in south Louisiana, and the reason Cajun music sounds like it does today, is because the black population got a hold of it. I think the percussive and syncopative rhythms you hear on old style cajun recordings came from th

Do other Cajuns share your thoughts on this. ?"

Yes, .....for most people that bury themselves in the old early music.   As a student, I too came away with this same conclusion.   In fact, it's one of the reasons why Acadian music doesn't sound like Cajun music.   They have fiddles.  They have 1 row accordions.  They have French lyrics.   But they don't have the Louisiana experience to rely on.     

WF

 for me, I had some difficulty understanding the close connection between arcadian and cajan tradition. the history of French exploration of north America ,and using the Mississippi as a transport route deep inland ,is the key to understanding how people could travel so far.the british slowly pushed the French out of Canada ?  many Canadian arcadian's resettled in Louisiana .    was there any ongoing communication between these two communities ??    was the popular one row box use in both places,a coincident?? because it was a cheap instrument.?      or was there some other link??        I am always surprised how much people travelled before the modern age.         the love of music may be the only real link??        yours in ignorance.brian..   

[triskel]

"They used to all be made in Saxony, including the Sterlings and the Monarchs, which were made (for different importers) in the same factory. I'm not aware of any evidence to suggest they were playing Hohner accordions before WW2, but afterwards there was nothing else available."

I was told the Eagle Brand Specials were in a different factory and lasted much longer.  Any truth in this?

From what I've heard, the Eagle Brand instruments were still available after the Dienst-made ones had become unobtainable, but they weren't as good.

Whilst "Eagle Brand" seems to have been yet another US importer's brand, because you don't get that name on this side of the Atlantic and I'd only get to see one very occasionally on eBay.com - like this very clean-looking one that finished yesterday: Vintage Germany Eagle Brand Accordion in Original Box

[Stiamh]

The british slowly pushed the French out of Canada?

I don't think "slowly" is quite the word. Have a look at this article and this snippet.

[triskel]

... "Eagle Brand" seems to have been yet another US importer's brand ...

And indeed it was!  Eagle Brand was the registered trade mark of the Fred. Gretsch Mfg. Co. of New York, filed 10/25/1913, for use on "Violin-Strings, Accordions, Concertinas, Mouth-Harmonicas and Chromatic Standards."

[melodeon]

"Louisiana

Acadians left France, under the influence of Henri Peyroux de la Coudreniere, to settle in Louisiana, which was then a colony of Spain.[111] The British did not deport Acadians to Louisiana.[112]

Louisiana was transferred to the Spanish government in 1762.[113] Because of the good relations between France and Spain, and their common Catholic religion, some Acadians chose to take oaths of allegiance to the Spanish government.[114] Soon the Acadians comprised the largest ethnic group in Louisiana.[115] They settled first in areas along the Mississippi River, then later in the Atchafalaya Basin, and in the prairie lands to the west—a region later renamed Acadiana. During the 19th century, as Acadians reestablished their culture, "Acadian" was elided locally into "Cajun"."

[triskel]

"They used to all be made in Saxony, including the Sterlings and the Monarchs, which were made (for different importers) in the same factory. I'm not aware of any evidence to suggest they were playing Hohner accordions before WW2, but afterwards there was nothing else available."

I was told the Eagle Brand Specials were in a different factory and lasted much longer.  Any truth in this?

Ah, NOW! This is starting to get very interesting... 

I did an image search on "eagle brand accordions" and saw a photo of Joe Falcon's last (Eagle Brand Special) accordion (in my photo below) that rang a bell with me - could I have seen it exhibited somewhere, maybe Eunice?

Anyway, what particularly struck me about that instrument (and those in some other Eagle Brand photos) is the design in the corners of the soundboard - because the very first new German style accordion/melodeon that I ever bought (from one of the music shops on Oxford Road, in Manchester, England) about 1972, had the exact same design there. Indeed it also had the same keyboard, with rounded ends, as seen in some of the other Eagle Brand photos. The brand name on mine was "Parsifal" - which I later learned belonged to Gebrüder Ludwig from Zwota (Klingenthal), and I've also learned to associate red bellows dividers with their production too...

Coincidentally, I've also visited the Museum of Harmonicas in Zwota, which occupies part of the old Ludwig factory.

[tirpous]

This Eagle Brand Professional has a somewhat different soundboard decoration.  Maybe another factory ?   

[triskel]

This Eagle Brand Professional has a somewhat different soundboard decoration.  Maybe another factory ?   

When looking at "house brands" like this you could well be looking at multiple manufacturers, in more than one country, all at the same time, let alone over a period of time - and especially in a decade as turbulent as the 1930s. So what's true for one instrument, of a certain brand and model, may not be so for another of "the same". 

But, interestingly in this context, I've a November 1928 (for 1929) catalogue of the London importers and wholesalers J. T. Coppock, "sole distributor - Ludwig Pine Tree and Parsifal brand accordeons." But on some of the same pages there are other, more expensive, models that look like copies of Dienst ones and bare the brand "Empress Professional" - "Empress" being the trade mark of Otto Weidlich in Brunndöbra, Klingenthal, a firm that prospered through the 1920s but suffered disastrously in the Great Depression of the following decade.

[falcanary]

On a related note....

Did Dole ever finish his book on these old accordions?   Where's all the research he did on this?

WF

[rees]

On a related note....

Did Dole ever finish his book on these old accordions?   Where's all the research he did on this?

WF

I been wondering the same thing.

[boxcall]

The british slowly pushed the French out of Canada?

I don't think "slowly" is quite the word. Have a look at this article and this snippet.

Good article! I did not know that Prince Edward Island was called Isle of Saint Jean, I did know about the French being there, as there is an old settlement site down the street from my Dad's place. It's near Point Prim an area mentioned in this article https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ile_Saint-Jean_Campaign
We visit there all the time, it's one of our favorite spots.They also mention Hillsborough river which is near my family's school house, now a summer place in Orwell cove, looking out over Hillsborough bay. In this link you can see my Dad's place the blue school house http://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-orwell-cove-school-an-old-small-one-room-wood-shingled-country-schoolhouse-61853512.html and this one shows his view of point prim. http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/travel/discover-beauty-adventure-canada-atlantic-coast-new-brunswick-newfoundland-article-1.163918  The school house is tucked behind the White farm House in the photo. Point prim is in the distance, you can see it's red clay shore.  Not a bad view I think
Ok back to Cajun melodeons.