Origins: Jambalaya (Hank Williams)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jambalaya
From: Armen Tanzerian
Date: 06 Sep 01 - 02:39 PM

Worse than carinogenic, it's carcinogenic.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jambalaya
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Sep 01 - 03:03 PM

Tarte d'ecrivisse est correct en francais 'cadien. I had never heard that file' is cancer causing, especially considering the small amount used. And to get back to music, Joel Sonnier has one of the better Cajun-French translations of Jambalaya on one of his recent CDs.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jambalaya
From: PoppaGator
Date: 03 Feb 05 - 07:19 PM

I'm sure that Joel Sonnier is just one of several Zydeco and/or Cajun artists who sing French translations of "Jambalaya." Clifton Chenier, for one, used to do many classic R&B and country numbers translated from English to (idiomatic Louisiana) French, including about half of the Fats Domino songbook.

Anyone looking for French lyrics to any number of originally-English American songs will find plenty of alternatives by researching the recordings of Zydeco singers. These guys would undoubtedly provide good translations, free of clumsy transliterations, because they're bilingual and have intimate knowledge of the idiomatic local use of both English and French.

Thibodaux and Fontenot are among the most common Cajun surnames; they're also, coincidentally, place names (of a major city and a tiny hamlet respectively), but I'm sure that Hank was singing about large clans of people attending the party.

"My cheramie-oh" is nothing more than "my dear" plus an extra nonsense syllable.

Gumbo is a thick soup that often contains one meat and one seafood ingredient (e.g., turkey and oyster gumbo); Creole gumbo usually means all seafood (oysters and shrimp and a few small hardshell crabs ~ "gumbo crabs"). All-vegetable ("green") gumbo is different, a thinnner soup that appears on menus as "Gumbo Z'herbes"; I have no idea where that "z" comes from ~ it's not standard Parisian French, that's for sure. All gumbos are normally served over white rice, which soaks up much of the liquid and makes the dish less soup-like and more "solid," perhaps seeming more like stew than soup.

The all-important thickening agent in gumbo is EITHER file powder or okra. It must be noted, however, that the word "gumbo" is the West African word for okra ~ meaning that the dish "gumbo" was originally made using okra, and that file was a later subsitution.

Never heard of file powder being carcinogenic. It is consumed only in small quantities (e.g., no more than a tablespoon per big potful, if I'm not mistaken).

Crawfish pie is NOT, as far as I know, a traditional Louisiana dish, and Hank may have made it up to fit his rhyme/rhythm scheme. People today sometimes make all different kinds of pies containing crawfish, but there does not seem to be an agreed-upon "classic" or "prototype" crawfish pie recipe. In my opinion, this phenomenon has to be a response to the song (i.e., the song came first, only then the actual pies).

Have you heard the one about the Cajun zoo?

How do you know you're at a Cajun zoo?

At a regular zoo, each exhibit has a sign giving the name of the animal, plus the Latin scientific name of its genus and species. At a Cajun zoo, the sign gives the name of the animal and the recipe.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jambalaya
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 03 Feb 05 - 08:11 PM

Some time ago the powers that be determined that sassafras was carcinogenic, and the ingredients of root beer were 'sanitized', some chemical was substituted to give the sassafras flavor.
File, being in the sassafras family, was tarred with the same brush, but folks in Louisiana decided other things would probably get them first, so file gumbo continues on its way.

Genuine root beer with sassafras is still available at organic stores.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jambalaya
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 05 Feb 05 - 01:10 PM

PoppaGator: My best guess is that "Gumbo z'herbes" is a Cajun shortening of "gumbo aux herbes," in which the "x" would be pronounced as a "z."

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jambalaya
From: Snuffy
Date: 05 Feb 05 - 01:16 PM

You mean "Gumb' aux herbes"?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jambalaya
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 05 Feb 05 - 01:16 PM

Come to think of it, that's probably how "zydeco" acquired its "z" sound: from "aux haricots." I've read that "zydeco" was derived from "haricots" but it never made sense to me until now.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jambalaya
From: GUEST,slucas
Date: 28 Mar 05 - 03:01 AM

The kinfolk come to see Yvonne by the dozen. Dressed in style go hog-wild.

Kinfolk is what Yvonne had to tell the neighbors so she wouldn't be run out of town when they came to her for sex. She had to say the men were relatives. Dressed in style means they could afford Yvonne fees for her services. Yvonne is the name of half the cajuns, the other half are named Joe.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jambalaya
From: GUEST
Date: 28 Mar 05 - 12:15 PM

Haricots / zydeco:

The lyrics of the "first" Zydeco song went somthing like this:

"Les haricots sont pas sale'" ~ "The snap beans are not salty."

So, the "Z" sound is actually the "S" in "les." In Cajun French, just as in Parisian French, the "S" sound at the end of the definite article "les" is silent when the next word begis with a consonant. but is sounded when the next word begings with a vowel.

Jim, sorry it took me so long to look back at this thread and respond about those snap beans. I'm sure you're right on the money in regard to "Gumbo z'herbes," by the way.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jambalaya
From: GUEST,Wrinkles
Date: 28 Mar 05 - 05:46 PM

Way to keep it complicated guys ;-)

You want e+acute? Type [Alt Gr] and [e] and you get é. Simple easy no hassle.

Add shift for the Cap; É

Works for all the vowels; á é í ó ú Á É Í Ó Ú

Wrinkles

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jambalaya
From: GUEST,PoppaGator
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 10:10 AM

That was me, yesterday, failing to make the accent aigu. I keep forgetting to identify myself after having to get here via the "backdoor."

I'm always glad to learn a little something, but can't figure out what the "Gr" might be in "[Alt Gr]." Help?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jambalaya
From: GUEST,Jim Dixon
Date: 29 Mar 05 - 12:18 PM

I don't know what Wrinkles was referring to, but this method works for me when I'm using Microsoft Word on a PC:

1. Press the "Ctrl" key and the apostrophe key at the same time, then release them, then:
2. Press the vowel that you want. For a capital letter, do it the same way you would nomally type a capital.

Then you can copy and paste from the Word document to the input box.

I like this method because I like to use Word anyway. It helps me avoid stupid spellig erors.

I'm afraid the method might be different depending on which software you're using, and possibly on what kind of keyboard.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jambalaya
From: GUEST,D.Landry
Date: 20 Jul 16 - 09:20 PM

Thibodeaux and Fontenot are last names (surnames to you Brits and Euros).

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jambalaya
From: GUEST
Date: 20 Jul 16 - 09:33 PM

Thibodeaux and Fontenot are last names (surnames to you Brits and Euros). Any towns in Louisiana bearing those names owe them to this fact. There's a whole parish named after my last name, for example.

If one listens to the lyrics (not reads, but listens) they will clearly hear that it says "THE Thibodeauxs, THE Fontenots, the place is buzzing." The presence of the definite article clearly makes these families of people, such as THE Capulets and THE Montagues; The Smiths or The Joneses. He is stating who is in attendance. The next line also makes it clear that these are kinfolk (most likely the speaker's and Yvonne's) who have come in large numbers to see Yvonne. "Kinfolk come to see Yvonne by the dozen." Why would that be? Not because she is a prostitute in a brothel, as someone reasoned above. She is his "cher amio", his "sweetest one," whom he has pirogued down the bayou to be with. It's a celebration at someone's home where people are "dressed in style" and enjoying traditional home cooked Cajun dishes and drinking liquor from mason jars and picking guitar. This is a Cajun wedding. The speaker is marrying Yvonne. The extended lyrics bear this out: "Settle down far from town, get me a pirogue (canoe)." And "Swap my mon(ey), to buy Yvonne what she need-oh." They're going to settle down and have big fun on the bayou (live happily ever-after). Okay? Make sense?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jambalaya
From: cnd
Date: 21 Jul 16 - 08:48 AM

You are correct, Guest. I assumed everyone knew that. Who ever thought this song was about a brothel?

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Jambalaya
From: cnd
Date: 21 Jul 16 - 08:55 AM

I just realized how that sounded, and want to add that I'm not saying your interpretation is bad, but that the others are kind of silly. I suppose this is how it seems to Britons when Americans try and explain an English "folk" song?

Subject: RE: Origins: Jambalaya (Hank Williams)
From: Joe Offer
Date: 22 Nov 21 - 04:24 PM

Some sources claim the song was co-written by Aubrey "Moon" Mullican. True???

Subject: RE: Origins: Jambalaya (Hank Williams)
From: GerryM
Date: 23 Nov 21 - 04:04 AM

For what it's worth, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/moon-mullican-mn0000594267/biography says, "Mullican was a star in the world of country music, and may have had more influence there than the sales of his records would lead one to believe. For decades, it was an open secret that he'd co-written "Jambalaya (On the Bayou)" with his fellow Grand Ole Opry member Hank Williams, collecting a 50-percent share of the royalties on the sly because of his contractual relationship to King Records."

Subject: RE: Origins: Jambalaya (Hank Williams)
From: leeneia
Date: 23 Nov 21 - 11:27 AM

I sing "Jambalaya and the catfish fryin and the file gumbo." Crawfish turn me off.

Somewhere I read that Yvonne owned the bar where Hank Williams and his friend wrote the song. In that account, the friend was named Ricky or maybe Bobbie.

I sang this at yesterday's singaround, and I did not appreciate some guy barging into the applause and snapping at me about not mentioning this little-known Moon Mullican (sure, and he's a Cajun). I had wanted to say a sentence or two about my visit to Cajun country, but no. A white guy
had a chip on his shoulder, so never mind that it was still my turn.