Tyke responsible for Cajun Music?

Subject: RE: Tyke responsible for Cajun Music?
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 10:23 AM

Thanks for the links, Sandy.

I watched the YouTube video for a while, but the flashing lights bothered me too much. It seems quite similar to Cajun music.

Subject: RE: Tyke responsible for Cajun Music?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 10:16 AM

While Acadia is today equated with Nova Scotia, the French colony was much larger, taking in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, southeastern Quebec, and a large part of Maine. Not all of the Acadians were deported and some of those that were returned and their descendants still live here today. In French the expulsion was called Grand Dérangement and there is a band by that name that you may find of interest.
Grand Dérangement
On YouTube

Subject: RE: Tyke responsible for Cajun Music?
From: johnadams
Date: 30 Aug 12 - 05:00 AM

Forgive my ignorance but I've never identified 'Acadian' geographically or musically.

Is it basically Nova Scotia?

Is there a band or player that you would say typifies the music that stayed, albeit mixed in with the music of the later incomers? Who should I listen to?

Subject: RE: Tyke responsible for Cajun Music?
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 08:47 PM

The Acadians were and still are a very musical people. Their music here today differs from the Cajun stylings of Louisiana but the same driving tempo survives. The fiddle styles of Scots and Irish players were adopted by French players but my guess is that what was played here 200 years ago would sound closer to Cajun.

Subject: Tyke responsible for Cajun Music?
From: johnadams
Date: 29 Aug 12 - 06:41 PM

Following up a query on the Tradtunes discussion group , I followed a logical path which made me think that an aristocratic bloke from a possibly Irish family but born in Yorkshire was responsible for Cajun music.

Matt Seattle was puzzled that he could find no reference to the other title for The Belle Isle March - that title being Monck's March and reckoned to refer to General Monck in the English Civil War. He was suggesting that the tune originated in the Seven Years War when Belle Isle was fought over and that it acquired the Monck's March title for some other reason.

I remembered that when Gerry Fox died some while ago, I mentioned on here, one of his songs that he recorded with us (The Druids) on the LP 'Songs and Music of the Redcoats'. Called 'Hot Stuff', the last verse mentions one of Wolfe's top generals, Brigadier Robert Monckton. I thought that it was possible that Monck's March was a shortening of Monckton's March. Perfectly possible but not, of course, verified.

A bit more of a poke round and Wikipedia reveals more (if it is to be believed). Monckton was an administrator as well as a soldier and was responsible for expelling the Acadians who wouldn't declare allegiance to the British Crown from what was to become Nova Scotia.

They were repatriated to Belle Isle which gives us the alternative name to Monckton's March. It's all falling into place.

The problem was that the Acadians didn't like Belle Isle and buggered off en masse to Louisiana.

SO! If a British General born in Yorkshire hadn't expelled the Acadians from Canada, they'd have probably still been there and Cajun Music as we know it wouldn't have existed.

Just saying.

Robert Monckton Wikipedia

Belle Isle Wikipedia