Help Needed to Save Historic Cajun & Creole
Recordings
This is a message I received from David Greely of the Mamou
Playboys about a critical need to save historic Cajun &
Creole recordings housed in the Archive of Cajun and Creole
folklore at the University of Louisiana Dupré Library and
how we fans of this music can help. Please consider making
a tax-deductible contribution.
Coup de Main for the Culture
In an effort to save and restore more than 1,800 recordings
of Cajun and Creole music that span over a century, we are
passing along an appeal for donations to all Cajun music
fans. Considered by musicians (including the Mamou
Playboys, Zachary Richard, and Beausoleil among others) and
scholars to be one of the most important audio collections
in the world, hundreds of tapes in the Archive of Cajun and
Creole folklore are in danger of permanent loss caused by
aging and environmental damage.
The recordings were stored without climate control during
three years of renovations on the University of Louisiana
Dupré Library. Located on the uppermost floor of the
library, the archive was subject to the full onslaught of
several Louisiana summers, exacerbated by an unusual period
of drought that denied even a few cooling rain clouds. Many
recordings exist only on reel-to-reel tapes, some of which
literally melted in their boxes. Others often fall apart as
they are being re-recorded onto other media. The Archive's
administration is doing the best it can: it recently won a
grant from the Louisiana Division of the Arts and has
received some support from the University. But the
undertaking is expensive and time consuming, and the few
resources the Archive has are stretched as far as they can
go.
Current efforts are focused on two primary goals: 1)
capturing as many of the recordings as possible in their
raw state, digitizing them as is for future conservation
efforts, and 2) making compressed versions of the digitized
files available to local and national musicians who visit
the archive to hear for themselves these unique recordings.
Once the collection has been recovered and stabilized, the
Archive hopes to begin issuing a series of recordings to
the wider public so that all who are interested can hear,
for example, Dewey Balfa playing in his own living room.
Friends, this situation is bordering on tragic. With only
volunteer labor and exhausted funding, John Laudun, Carl
Brasseaux and Erik Charpentier are trying to save an
irreplaceable treasure. These are field recordings of
non-commercial Cajun and Creole music and storytelling
dating back to the 1930s, when most of the performers were
carrying forward music from the previous century. Most of
the artists captured on tape in the Archive are long
departed, and some of them can only be found in this
Archive. It is a wealth of music and oral tradition that
has never passed through the needle's eye of the record
business, and it enables us to conceive the depth and
breadth of our musical heritage.
We are asking for your help. The goal for this fundraising
appeal is $50,000, which will allow the first primary goal
to be achieved -- transferring the recordings from tape to
digitized media. It would be a great help if all recipients
of this newsletter could contribute $10 to this much-needed
project.
Tax-deductible financial contributions to the effort of
saving the Archive can be made payable to Center for
Cultural and Eco-Tourism, or CCET, and sent to:
Dr. Carl Brasseaux,Center for Cultural and Eco-Tourism,
University of Louisiana at Lafayette, P.O. Box 40199,
Lafayette, LA 70504
For more information contact: John Laudun at
laudun@louisiana.edu