"Lawtell Two Step" - Vincent & Cagley

"Vincent & Cagley" was the duo title for guitarist Crawford Vincent and Will Kegley. Together, they recorded two songs for Khoury's subsidiary Lyric label in 1952, one being the old Cajun string band tune "Two Step de Lawtell".  It's record producer George Khoury's only brand label with the red color and gold Lyric logo.   Khoury's Lyric label and later, his self entitled label, was one of the earliest post-war recording labels in south Louisiana and one of the few that gave Cajun musicians their recording "break". Vincent recalls,

Mr. George started out a lot of Cajun bands, I mean like Lawrence Walker, Nathan Abshire, even Jimmy 'C.' Newman.  I recorded for him two songs, I never did do well, they didn't make no hit.  But I was still proud I made 'em, because, you know, it's a souvenir for my grandchildren.  But Mr. Khoury he started a whole bunch of guys.  You see he's had Marie Falcon, Shuk Richard, he's had Will Kegley--that song we made, me and Will Kegley, he put that out.5  

Hé jolie ‘tite fille,

Pourquoi mais j’sus comme ça?

Oh, ‘tit cœur,

N’importe à ton "bon-à-rien". 

Hé jolie ‘tite fille,

Pour toi, comment ça s’fait?*

Tout le temp, ‘tit monde,

Mais oui, dans les misères.

Leo Soileau and Crawford Vincent

Crawford, who had played for years under different groups, mainly with Leo Soileau, teamed up with Nathan Abshire's old fiddle player, Will Kegley for the classic song, "Lawtell Two Step" (#605).  Crawford's earliest memories were learning to play music:

My sister gave me a fiddle when I was nine, and I got an ol' barber down there on the Mermentau River to tune it. I played fiddle the first time when I was nine---well, harmonica when I was eight. You could pack that in the cotton field. You just play 'em, and then when they get kind of dirty you boil 'em in hot water. Anybody can play a harmonica, but they don't master it. I played it pretty well, but I never did play it in a band. I played guitar, fiddle, and drums with the western-swing band.4   

Hey, pretty little girl,

Why, well, am I like that?

Oh, little sweetheart,

Doesn't matter to your "good-for-nothing".

Hey, pretty little girl,

For you, how do you do this?

All the time, my little everything,

Well, yeah, in misery. 

Benny Fruge

By 1951, Crawford employed pianist Cecil Farrell "Benny" Fruge.  Benny learned to play piano from his father Hubert who was known a locally known piano tuner.  Benny picked up the craft at the age of five and began memorizing what he played.  This helped him to develop a keen ear for music.   He began playing with small bands such as Papa Cairo, Jimmy Newman, Chuck Guillory and Happy Fats, while he was still a high school student.  Accommodating teachers arranged his senior high school classes for the afternoon to enable him to continue his musical activities.2,3   


Benny occasionally toured with Lefty Frizzell and played in the Rampart Street Six jazz band until 1954.2  By the late 50s, Fruge had moved to Baton Rouge working at Werleins music store, tuning pianos and teaching piano.  In 1980, he opened his own piano store, Fruge’s Piano Company.1  

1. https://rabenhorst.com/obituary/c-farrellbennyfruge/
2. Daily World (Opelousas, Louisiana) 16 Nov 1967
3. Basile Weekly (Basile, Louisiana) 17 May 1990
4. They Called It the War Effort: Oral Histories from World War II Orange, Texas By Louis Fairchild
5. Cajun Honky Tonk: The Khoury Recordings, Volume 1 (Arhoolie, 1995).  Liner notes.
6. Lyrics by Stephane F and Smith S

Release Info:
A Chere Petite Blun | Khoury's/Lyric 605-A
B Lawtell Two Step | Khoury's/Lyric 605-B

Find:

Cajun Honky Tonk: The Khoury Recordings, Volume 1 (Arhoolie, 1995)

"Fais Do Do Two Step" - Jimmy Durbin

Some of the earliest Cajun string band music were still being recorded in the early 1950s.   Bands like Chuck Guillory and Jimmy Newman were latching onto the style, sometimes landing large recording contracts with MGM, Decca, and Columbia.   Around this same time, one would gather that a certain Jimmy Durbin lead a group of Cajun musicians backed by Chuck Guillory's band members and recorded "Fais Do Do Two Step" (#1008) for J.D. Miller's Fais Do Do label.  It was a version of Amede Ardoin's "One Step de Chameaux".   

Misspelled "fias", it was an ode to the common Cajun house dance event known as a "fais do-do".   Literally meaning "make sleep", the word "do" became a shorted form of the French word "domir" (to sleep).   In the same manner a mother was tell a child "beddie-bye" in English, legend has it that mothers who attended these dances with their children, tried to quickly get their babies to sleep in the back room, less their husbands be caught dancing with someone else!

Oh, ma jolie fille, 'tit fille, m'fais pas ça,

Cherie, ma jolie cœur, 'tit fille m'fais pitié,

Oh, ma malheureuse, tit fille, m'fais du mal, 

Eh, ma ça ta fais ton nègre, il y a pas longtemps.

Chérie, mais, j'vas mourir, 'tite fille, mais, ça me va pas,

Tite fille, auprès de toi, chérie, mais, que j'vas voir,

Eh, mais, malheureuse, m'j'connais te m'fais pitié,

Chérie, t'es, joli cœur, tite fille, tu me fais du mal.

Jimmy Newman, Curzy Porkchop Roy,
unknown, Papa Cairo, unknown,
Herman Durbin

Image courtesy of Johnnie Allan Collection, 

Center for Louisiana Studies, 

University of Louisiana at Lafayette

It would seem that Chuck's band had this recording led by a man named Jimmy Durbin.  Except, there's one problem: there was no such person as Jimmy Durbin!  In a strange identity crisis, no one has been able to determine who this person was, leading to several theories. The name is most likely Miller's attempt at listing Jimmy Newman and his regular piano-playing sidekick, Herman Durbin, together.  Instead of Benny Fruge on piano, it could very well be Herman with Miller attempting to list them as "Jimmy & Durbin". 

Author and producer of the Acadian All-Star box set, Lyle Ferbrache explains:

For some reason when JD released the record, he put the name "Jimmy Durbin" on the record.  Shelton Manuel had no idea why.  As far as I can tell there us no Jimmy Durbin.  J.D. did things that sometimes made no sense.1

Oh, my pretty girl, little girl, don't do that to me,

Dearie, my pretty sweetheart, little girl, make me pitiful,

Oh, my unfortunate little girl, that hurts me,

Hey, that was done to your man, over there not long ago.

Dearie, well, I'll die, little girl, well, I'm not going,

Little girl, with you, dearie, that I can see,

Hey, well, oh my, I know you made me pitiful,

Dearie, you are a pretty sweetheart, little girl, you've hurt me.

Regardless, the band was most of Chuck Guillory's backup group with Jimmy Newman on guitar, Shelton Manuel on vocals and fiddle, Francis "Red" Fabacher on steel guitar, Howard Thibodeaux on bass, Curzey "Pork Chop" Roy on drums, and either Herman Durbin or Benny Fruge on piano.   The record was recorded on a tape machine that J.D. had just started using and wanted to see if he could make a remote recording.  So, Miller and the band recorded the session at Benny's Fruge Piano House in Eunice about 1949.  It was recorded around the same time Nathan Abshire used the melody for his "Lake Charles Two Step".   Later, Chuck Guillory would record it as "One Step De Chameaux".   Generally, both songs are known as the same tune.  

1. Discussions with Lyle F
2. Lyrics by Stephane F

Release Info:

-A Drunkard Waltz | Fais-Do-Do F1008-A

-B Fais Do Do Two Step | Fais-Do-Do F1008-B

Find:

Acadian All Star Special - The Pioneering Cajun Recordings Of J.D. Miller (Bear, 2011)

"Chere Petite Blun" - Vincent & Cagley

Fiddle player and Cajun drummer, Crawford Vincent, came from a musical family.  His grandfather, Theozime Vincent, who had come from France, was known to play dances in the Gueydan area as early as the 1870s.   Crawford not only learned from his grandfather, but also from a local fiddler named J.B. Fuselier.  However, Crawford's biggest influence came from listening to and playing with the Hackberry Ramblers.1

Will Kegley grew up in a sharecropper family where he and the Clement family grew up together. Accordion player Terry Clement believes this is where Will learned how to play the fiddle.   By the late 1930s, Will and a guitar player from Jennnings named Ernest Thibodeaux.    Will Kegley's biggest connection to the music was when he helped find Nathan Abshire to lead the Pine Grove Boys.   

Crawford Vincent

Oh 'tit monde, tout ça, mais, t'es après faire, 

Si loin, 'tite fille, de moi de toi,

Oh, tout le temps, après 'garder, ouais, pour toi, 

Ça on appelle ma chère,  jolie petite brune.

Oh tout le temps, de t'voir, mais, aussi loin, 

Avec un autre, 'tite fille qui m'aimait pas. 

Oh, de t'voir, avec un autre, avec un monde,

(Je te) promets, 'tit monde, ça fait de la peine.

Crawford and Will were popular musicians that played often together in other groups such as in Shuk Richard's Louisiana Aces.1  They duo came together in 1952 to recording for George Khoury's new record lable Lyric where they waxed "Chere Petite Blun" (#605), adding Cecil Farrell "Benny" Fruge on piano.  Sadly, the rest of the musicians during the session is unknown. Khoury's lack of attention to detail produced a title with the word "brun" misspelled along side Kegley's name written as "Cagley".

Will Kegley

Oh, my everything, all that, well, you've done,

So far away, little girl, I am from you,

Oh, all the time, looking, yeah, for you, 

We call my dear, pretty little brunette.

Oh, all the time, seeing you, well, so far away,

With another, little girl, who doesn't like me,

Oh, seeing you with another, everywhere,

(I) promise you, little everything, it hurts.

However, in tragic turn of events, Will's reputation would be cemented as a rough musician. In June of 1954, while playing with the Pine Grove Boys, he stabbed steel guitar player Atlas Fruge in a fit of rage over the jealously surrounding his wife Oziet.   He was sentenced to Angola for 18 months but only served a year.   Afterwards, he filled in with other bands such as Andrew Cormier's Rambling Aces.1  

1. Cajun Dancehall Heyday by Ron Yule
2. Lyrics by Stephane F

Release Info:
A Chere Petite Blun | Khoury's/Lyric 605-A
B Lawtell Two Step | Khoury's/Lyric 605-B

Find:
Cajun Honky Tonk: The Khoury Recordings Vol. 2 (Arhoolie, 2013)

"Hippy Ti Yo" - Abe Manuel

Abraham "Abe" Manuel was a hillbilly fiddle player that dabbled in both country music and Cajun music, covering popular tunes of the region.  In the early 1940s, he played with Leo Soileau at the Avalon Club in Basile.  No strangers in the music business, Abe Manuel Sr. toured and appeared at the Louisiana Hayride and the Grand Ole Opry with Hank Williams and Lefty Frizzell. For a time, he was one of Bob Wills' Texas Playboys. He ended up playing with Chuck Guillory, Carrol Broussard, and even possibly Harry Choates with his brother Joe.  Broussard, who played steel guitar with Harry, recalls that Abe filled in on fiddle for Harry when he "went off to get cured".1   

Lake Charles American Press
Mar 3, 1954

C'est le Hip et Taïaut, ouais, 

Mais, qu'a volé mon traîneau, ouais, 

Quand il a vu j’étais devenu chaud, cherie,

Il a ramené mon traîneau. 

C'est les filles de Bosco, ouais, 

Qu'a volé mon gilet,

Quand il a vu j'suis d'venu chaud , chérie, 

T'as ramené mon gilet.

C'est le Hip et Taïaut, ouais, 

Mais, qu'a volé mon traîneau, ouais, 

Quand il a vu j’étais devenu chaud, cherie,

Il a ramené mon traîneau. 

C'est les filles de Bosco, ouais, 

Qu'a volé mon gilet,

Quand il a vu j'suis d'venu chaud , chérie, 

T'as ramené mon gilet.

Abe Manuel Sr.

Recorded in 1954 at J.D. Miller's studio in Crowley, Louisiana, Abe's Louisiana Hillbillies consisted of Abe Manuel on fiddle, Bradley Stutes on steel guitar, Dorothy "Dottie" Vincent on rhythm guitar, Amos Comeaux on drums, and either Wiley Barkdull or Cecil Farrell "Benny" Fruge on piano.  In the song, it's quite possible "Pitre et Bosco" is actually "filles de Bosco", similar to the lyrics in Leo Soileau's "Hackberry Hop".  Either way, the song is clearly taken from the well-known "Ils La Volet Mon Trancas" sung by Cleoma Breaux in 1934.   

It's Hip and Taïaut, yeah,

That stole my sled, yeah,

When they saw I had become hot, cherie,

They brought my sled back.

This the girls of Bosco, yeah,

That stole my vest,

When they saw I had become hot, cherie,

They brought my jacket back.

By 1965, Abe was living in Lake Charles and became vice-president of the Southern Association of Country and Western Music.   Years afterwards, Abe and his wife Dottie were owners of Manuel's Cajun Store in Milton, Tennessee for years. That store became a restaurant, and Abe Manuel Sr. found his calling. On summertime Friday nights at dusk, most of the town bring lawn chairs over to the restaurant, sit down in the road, and eat friend alligator and crawfish étouffée while watching the Manuels and their friends play Cajun country music on the porch.  

1. Louisiana Fiddlers By Ron Yule 
2. In the Country of Country: A Journey to the Roots of American Music By Nicholas Dawidoff
3. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/alt.music.country.classic/Hh9-IIB9nt4
4. May 21, 1965 Lake Charles American-Press from Lake Charles, Louisiana · Page 5

Find:

Acadian All Star Special - The Pioneering Cajun Recordings Of J.D. Miller (Bear, 2011)