Origins: Cajun Love Song: based on traditional?

Subject: Origins: Cajun Love Song: based on traditional?
From: GUEST,Dm3ntd
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 03:47 PM

I've been wondering this for quite some time: at some point during Disney's Princess and the Frog, the character Ray sings a couple of lines which are the beginning of Leon Russell's Cajun Love Song:

Your mama catch a little fish, your papa catch two

Now, Randy Newman (an American national treasure, my opinion, and the film score composer for the film) might have just been familiar with the Leon Russell song, or he might have known a Cajun traditional song that Russell (no mean songwriter himself) might have based the song on. Wikipedia says that Newman lived as a small child in the New Orleans area and spent summers there into his pre-teens, so he might have picked up something there, but I would expect that if there is a traditional precursor, it would show up *somehow* in a Google or DigiTrad search, and if it does, I can't find it. Additionally, it's not like the Disney organization to just grab a piece of somebody else's (Russell's) work and use it in a film; their track record says they use original stuff, and Newman would certainly been capable of coming up with something on his own.

Anybody got a clue here? Not me; I've been told I couldn't get a clue standing in a clue field drenched in clue musk and singing the clue mating song.

Subject: RE: Origins: Cajun Love Song: based on traditional?
From: maeve
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 04:11 PM

Just so we start from the same version:

Cajun Love Song by Leon Russell (born Claude Russell Bridges)

Whoa, mama catch a little fishy, papa catch two
Well, back in the bayou it's-a fishin' time
Workin' together on a bottle of wine
We'll go down to Thibodeaux tonight

Chorus:
Go roun', go roun', lil' Alice blue gown
We'll soon be together on the bayou sundown
We'll jaw jambalaya, and sing all night long
Me and my baby and a Cajun love song

Now I can remember when Alice first came
From Lake Charles to see me at Pontchartrain
But my heart beats slower when she not around
The best things in life not the same

Sometimes I get lonely and I'm hurtin' inside
When my Alice can't understand
Like a dancer I saw in New Orlean' one time
She makes me feel just like a man

http://www.lyrics.net/lyric/994073

Subject: RE: Origins: Cajun Love Song: based on traditional?
From: maeve
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 04:14 PM

Here is Cajun Love Song sung by Leon Russell:
Cajun Love Song - Leon Russell (youtube)

Now the experts can chime in!

Subject: RE: Origins: Cajun Love Song: based on traditional?
From: Jeri
Date: 10 Oct 14 - 04:33 PM

The soundtrack to "The Princess and the Frog" has "Cajun Love Song", "written by Leon Russell". So Disney didn't "grab" it if they credited Russell and pay royalties.

Subject: RE: Origins: Cajun Love Song: based on traditional?
From: GUEST,Stim
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 10:54 AM

This song seems to reference three other songs, one of which is Hank Williams "Jambalaya",
"Alice Blue Gown" by Harry Tierney (inspired by Alice Roosevelt Longworth's favorite color), and "Three Little Fishies" made famous by Kay Kyser.

Subject: RE: Origins: Cajun Love Song: based on traditional?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 11 Oct 14 - 01:13 PM

Spelling- the Louisiana town is Thibodaux, the parish seat of Lafourche.
Like Stim, I see reference to those tunes.

Nothing to suggest traditional origin.

Subject: RE: Origins: Cajun Love Song: based on traditional?
From: GUEST
Date: 06 Dec 18 - 07:54 PM

My Tata, Irvin Verret wrote and sang the original version of A Cajun Live Song. Here was from Broussard, Louisiana....and that gentlemen is the truth!