"Se Mallereux" - Happy Fats

Records had been available regionally since the late 1920s and a few of them got played elsewhere from time to time, but it was in 1939 that Leroy "Happy" Fats LeBlanc and the Rayne-Bo Ramblers became the first band from south Louisiana to play on a radio show broadcast nationally over the CBS network. Old-timers will recall that Fats and his band were regular performers at the OST Club in Rayne and Tee Maurice Club near Vatican.1 

T'as quitté hier au soir,

Avec un gros en or,

T'as revenu à ce matin,

Tu sentais le vin blanc.

C'est malheureux, (c'est malheureux,) 

C'est malheureux tu m'fais comme ça,

C'est malheureux tu m'as quitté, 

Quoi faire tu veux venir.

Quoi faire donc, pitié, 

Tu fais ça z-avec moi,

T'es après faire du mal,

À ton pauvre nègre.

C'est malheureux, (c'est malheureux,)

C'est malheureux tu m'fais comme ça. 

C'est malheureux tu m'as quitté, 

Quoi faire tu veux venir.

Happy Fats

Fats was reared on a rice farm near Rayne, Louisiana and got his first guitar by trading a sack of rice for it. He was working in a rice mill for $1.50 a day when he started his band as a way to earn a little bit of money during the Depression. "We'd play dances for ten dollars for the whole band," he said in an interview some years ago. "That was two dollars apiece and two dollars for traveling expenses."1  

By 1938, after having many musicians in and out of his band, he regrouped with the Guidry's, Roy "Blackie" Romero and a talented 17-yr-old pianist from the St. Martinville area named Robert Thibodeaux.  Together, they formed a western swing outfit for a recording session at the St. Charles Hotel in New Orleans and recorded a French version of Deep Elem Blues entitled "Se Mallereux" (#2089).

You left last night,

With a big man in wealth,

You've returned this morning,

You smelled of white wine.

That's terrible, that's terrible,

That's terrible, you did like that,

That's terrible, you left me,

How you want to come back.

So, what's done, pitiful,

You did that with me,

You're going to hurt,

Your poor old man.

That's terrible, that's terrible,

That's terrible, you did like that,

That's terrible, you left me,

How you want to come back.

1. Jim Bradshaw. "Happy Fats Heard Nationwide". The Abbeville Meridional, published in Abbeville, Louisiana on Sunday, January 29th, 2012
2. Lyrics by Stephane F

Release Info:

BS-022035-1 Ma belle Mellina | Bluebird B-2046-A

BS-022036-1 Se Mallereux | Bluebird B-2046-B

BS-022036-1 Se Mallereux | Bluebird B-2089-A

BS-022023-1 Cherie a you toi te? [Hackberry Ramblers] | Bluebird B-2089-B

Find: 

HAPPY FATS & His Rayne-Bo Ramblers (BACM, 2009)