Evangeline Playboys – A Tribute To Austin Pitre (CD)

Evangeline Playboys A Tribute to Austin Pitre recalls a turning point in Cajun music, when bands began to add driving drums and rhythm instruments, revitalizing regional musical traditions that’d been passed down through multiple generations of Cajun and Creole families.

Austin Pitre stands as one of the most iconic accordion players and bandleaders to come from the Cajun dancehall era. Born in 1918 in Ville Platte, Louisiana, Pitre’s recording career lasted from the late 1940s to the early 1970s, leaving a legacy of dozens of original songs added to the Cajun music repertoire before his passing in 1981.

Many of Austin Pitre’s songs with The Evangeline Playboys have stuck over the decades as Cajun standards, none more notable than “Les Flammes D’Enfer” (The Flames of Hell). Pitre claimed to be the first musician to play the accordion standing up, rather than sitting down, often playing without a strap, behind his back and above his head. When he wasn’t working as an auto mechanic or fixing rice pumps in the fields, Pitre was packing dancehalls locally, as well as rare performances at national events including the Smithsonian. His music attracted the attention of Folk Music aficionados…