Friday video: Aldus Roger ‘Allons a Lafayette’

Here’s the late, great Aldus Roger and the Lafayette Playboys performing Allons á Lafayette at the 1994 Cajun French Music Association.  It’s the first commercially-released Cajun song, recorded by Cleoma Breaux and Joe Falcon.  Roger’s not singing, and neither is his pedal steel guitarist, so I’m thinking it’s the drummer. “Let’s go to Lafayette and change your name,” i.e., get married.  This is one of the most recorded songs in the Cajun repertoire. 

 

Friday video: ‘Bosco stomp’ by Aldus Roger and the Lafayette Playboys

Introduced with the French “lâche les,” or “let ’em go/let ’em loose,” here are Aldus Roger and the Lafayette Playboys showing that you don’t need a stage presence to absolutely tear it up!  The song the Bosco stomp is about mischievous blondes and brunettes.  As many songs, this is named for a real place, Bosco, but it has nothing to do with the song.  The poster lists musicians, with some discussion in the comments.  Roger was a giant of the accordion in the 1950s through the 1970s, though he didn’t die until 1999.  Every Saturday he had a Cajun music program on KLFY-TV in Lafayette, even writing the KLFY waltz in their honor.