30-Minute Music Hour

>> It's 30 Minute Music Hour. I'm Andy Moore. From Madison, Wisconsin, the Cajun Strangers!

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>> Yeah! Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you. >> All right, thanks a lot. We're the Cajun Strangers from right here in Madison. We do Cajun music like you might hear down in the southwest Louisiana. A lot of people think of New Orleans when you hear Cajun music. They really don't have much Cajun music there. It's more to the west of there, towns like Lafayette and Breaux Bridge. Just about any night of the week you can go to a restaurant or bar or jam session and hear this kind of music. It's still real popular down there. They say that in Louisiana there's still 100,000 people that still think is French. It's like a native language and it's still pretty strong down there. We're going to do, now, a classic Cajun two step like you might hear at a dance hall. It's called a Eunice two step. >> One, two, three, four.

singing in French

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>> That was a Eunice two step. >> Next up we're going to bring a-- The first song that we did was called "Amirl Rouge" and that was written by our accordion player, Tom Nickel. >> That's me. >> He's also a fiddle player.

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>> Right now we're going to another one of his originals. This is one he's going to play on the fiddle. It's kind of the classic Cajun twin fiddle style. Before the accordion was popular in Louisiana, the two fiddles is how they used to do it. This is sort of dating back to the old style of Cajun music, a little twin fiddle. This is named "Elizabeth." He named this after his beautiful wife, Liz. >> Yup, that's good. Stop there.

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>> Thank you. Thank you so very much. >> That was "Elizabeth" by Tom Nickel. We're going to do one now that our guitar player, Scott Muelarky, wrote. This is kind of a county tune. When we were recording our last CD we decided it would be sort of fun to, instead of playing it like the traditional Cajun style, we would do it more of a Country. So we're going to have Colin Bazsali play the banjo on this one. >> For real Country you gotta go into the mountains. >> Tom Nickel's going to play the honky-tonk piano and Jim is gonna play the mandolin. >> It's like we're at a barrel house or something. >> It's kind of Cajun honky-tonk hybrid. >> One, two, three, four. What a fine fix to be in When your mind Is not your friend Full of what ifs and lies The pain never dies Is there no one In this world for me? Well, take me away to a land Where everyone Loves to dance And ideas and dreams Are merely fruit on the tree Ain't no one in this world For me Is there no one In this world for me? No muse, no spark No honey? No one to hold my hand While I laugh at the sand And someday Steal my burden away The time is only you and me I watched you Fly over the sea Won't you ever come back And make me laugh? Tell me you're in this world For me Is there no one In this world for me? No muse, no spark No honey? No one to hold my hand While I cry over the sand That will someday Steal my burden away What a fine fix to be in When your mind Is not your friend Full of what ifs and lies The pain never dies Ain't no one In this world for me? Is there no one In this world for me? No muse, no spark No honey? No one to hold my hand As I laugh at the sand That will someday Steal our burdens away No one to hold my hand While we dance over the sand That will someday Steal my burden away

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>> All right, "No One In This World." All right, we're going to back to the dance halls of Louisiana. This is kind of one of the all-time greats. This is called the "Osco Stomp." >> I used to drink Osco. >> Osco is a town that I don't think exists any more. >> It's a drink. >> Okay. They used to drink in the town.

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They liked to stomp

singing in French

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>> Thank you! >> That was the "Osco Stomp." >> Okay. >> We've got time to do one more tune though. We want to remind you we're the Cajun Strangers. We're from right here in Madison. You can check us out, www.cajunstarngers.com. We've got a couple of CDs out on the Swallow record label. We've got one more that's just about to get released pretty soon. Hopefully. We've been saying that for six months. We're going to finish off here with a thing that we like to do. We call it the "Fiddle Sticks." We bought these chop sticks down in Chinatown in Chicago. Colin is going to play them on my fiddle while I'm fiddling. It's call the "Fiddle Sticks." You've probably heard the term. >> Aw, fiddle sticks!

tuning

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>> Thank you. Colin Bazsali. Tom Nickel, Scott Muelarky, my name is Brian O'Donnell. I've got Jim Schwall. Thanks a lot.