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Wednesday, September 17, 2014

"Vas Y Carrément (Step It Fast)" - Breaux Brothers

During the Breaux Brother's first session in 1929 where they recorded the first version of Jole Blon called "Ma Blonde Est Partie", they also recorded "Vas Y Carrément" better known as "Step It Fast". Columbia and Okeh released this song on the flip side. This instrumental melody would be a hard driving, rhythmic song with a relatively quick tempo for Cajun music of the time. 

Cleoma can be heard strumming the guitar vigorously. Alan Lomax would travel to Louisiana in 1934 and record the Segura Brothers sing and play a similar melody entitled "Les Filles a Albert Moreau". The songs was about a fictional pimp named "Albert Moreau" and his ladies of the night.

Leo Soileau used the melody in one of his first string band recording sessions, entitling it "Paroi Acadia Breakdown".  In 1937, the song title would change slightly with the Hackberry Rambler's song called "Pas Aller Vita", also referred to as Step It Fast. This Cajun swing instrumental would be recorded in New Orleans for Bluebird stylized by Luderin Darbonne's fiddle playing. In 1949, Nathan Abshire would record this melody live at a radio station in Lake Charles, Louisiana. 
Amedie Breaux, 1960

Even though Nathan Abshire would eventually wax the tune as "Step It Fast" on Khoury's, in 1949, and "Ain't No More" by the Texas Melody Boys, it would Joe Bonsall and The Orange Playboy's 1963 recording of the song "T'en as eu, T'en auras plus" that brought along the melody's popularity.  

It's one of the quickest melodies in all of Cajun music.









  1. South to Louisiana: The Music of the Cajun Bayous By John Broven
  2. Louisiana Women: Their Lives and Times edited by Janet Allured, Judith F. Gentry
  3. Crossroads: A Southern Culture Annual edited by Ted Olson
  4. Traditional Music in Coastal Louisiana: The 1934 Lomax Recordings By Joshua Clegg Caffery
Find:
Louisiana Cajun Music Vol. 5: The Early Years 1928-1938 (Old Timey/Arhoolie, 1973)
Cajun, Vol. 1: Abbeville Breakdown 1929-1939 (Sony/Columbia, 1991)
Les Cajuns Best Of 2002 Les Triomphes De La Country Volume 12 (Habana, 2002)
Cajun Music (Goldenlane, 2009)
The Perfect Roots & Blues Collection (Sony, 2015)

1 comment:

  1. This is a great song. As "Step it fast" it has lots of versions to the present, from Aldus Roger, Jo-El Sonnier, Lee Benoit, the Hackberry Ramblers, though my favorite is by Joe Bonsall. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete

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