"Johnny Can't Dance" - Lawrence Walker

As a Cajun bandleader, Lawrence Walker was a perfectionist. He carefully controlled and crafted the sound of his Wandering Aces band. He was also a gifted singer and composed several Cajun music classics such as "Johnny Can't Dance" (#615) on George Khoury's label.1

Author Raymond Francois said that his father told him the song entered the Cajun repertoire through a children's book called "The Rabbit Stole The Pumpkin", also a tune recorded earlier by John Bertrand.2  However, if you listen carefully to the intro, it sounds eerily close to the chorus of Jimmy Driftwood's song "Battle of New Orleans". 

Guitarist Sam Broussard explains some of the complexity in the song's chord changes:

Some Cajun songs are "crooked," meaning they drop and/or pick up beats. The opposite of crooked is square.  Country songs are almost always square.  Cajun music is vastly more organized, in that thee dropped beats and added pauses have become part of the song in many, many cases.  After a while you don't notice it.  A good example of a crooked song is Johnny Can't Dance.3

Khoury lined up Walker's group containing Uray Jules "U.J." Meaux on fiddle, Demus Comeaux on guitar, Valmont "Junior" Benoit on steel guitar, and Lawrence Trahan on drums.  Some had thought that since swamp pop singer Johnny Allan had played with Lawrence when Allan was young, he was the subject of the song.  However, during an interview, when asked, Johnny laughed saying:

Oh, while I am surely not a dancer, I have no idea where the song got the title.  That song was much older than me.  Lawrence could have gotten that title from anywhere.4

In 1989, Cajun rocker Wayne Toups took Walkers tune, added lyrics and created one of the most popular Cajun rock songs of the modern era: "Johnnie Can't Dance (Johnnie Peut Pas Dancer)".  

1. Cajun Music: Its Origins and Development by Barry Jean Ancelet
2. Ye Yaille Chere by Raymond Francois
3. Negotiating Difference in French Louisiana Music: Categories, Stereotypes ... By Sara Le Menestrel
4. Discussions with Johnny A

Release Info:
Evangeline Waltz | Khoury's KH 615-A
Johnny Can't Dance | Khoury's KH 615-B

Find:
A Legend At Last (Swallow, 1983)
Essential Collection of Lawrence Walker (Swallow, 2010)