One
and a half year ago the Downtown Cajun Band was formed. The group is getting
better all the time judging from the posters at concerts and festivals. The
website, www. downtowncajunband.nl plays an important part in this. The four
members of the band are beginning to develop a distinctive sound in traditional
cajun music. They are here to stay and we are certainly going to hear more from
Ed van Dorp( guitar and vocals), Nelly Pieters( cajun triangle ), Ron van Doorneveld
( accordeon and vocals ) and Will Pieters( fiddle ). Now Will pieters will tell
us allabout it.I don't see myself as an authority on cajun music, I wouldn't dare. I'm much too modest for that, but I think I have a clear view on this music. I want to keep cajun music as pure as possible, the way it is played in Louisiana. That means you have to keep it quite simple, using simple playing techniques, as I try to do. Originally the musicians in Louisiana weren't brilliant players either. They learnt it from their fathers, who in their turn had learnt it from theirs. It was handed down from one generation to the other, including all the shortcomings in the way they played. A cajun fiddler holds his bow the wrong way, just as he does his fiddle and he plays in the first position. I want to keep to this kind of playing, be it without those notes out of key. That is the power of traditional music and I will stick to this way of playing, I am really conservative in tis respect. The great players I really admire are Dennis McGee and of course the Balfa Brothers.
I came to know about cajun music through Herman van Rijn of the Cajun Company. We shared the same liking i.e Western music: not only the music, but even more so its life style and the search for original items that go along with it. At a given moment Herman came to me with a cassette he had got from his brother.On it was traditional cajun music. We had a good laugh about it for who will put anything as ridiculous as that on tape for crying out loud! Herman's brother made some more enquiries into cajun music and came up with yet another tape not much later.Now we heard a different kind of cajun music which we liked much better. Many tapes followed after that and that' s how my interest in cajun music developed. I found out that cajun music originates from France and has gone through many stages from the moment when French emigrants set foot on North American soil.
Through his interest in cajun music Herman met accordeon player Bas van der Poll. He happened to be busy with the same kind of music for some time and when it appeared that the two of them lived quite near each other they soon got together for the first sessions. I asked Herman if I could come to such a session with my guitar. That was okay and after a couple of times playing together I told Bas that I had got a violin at home. Bas thought that was very interesting and he kind of liked the idea to have me bring that instrument along next time. Bas drew an outline on paper showing 4 strings in a number of positions on which to place my fingers in order to play chords. I wasn't very much taken by the idea, but Bas insisted. He finally persuaded me and for the rest of that evening I was just "sawing" chords. By the time I went home I had become enthusiastic and when I got home I just kept on going. At a certain moment I also began to get the notion how to handle the bow in the right way.
After 8 years I left the Cajun Company, also because I wanted to do my own thing. I played second fiddle in the band and I liked that fine, because you weren't standing in the spotlights so to speak. At the time I didn't think much of playing lead fiddle, but later on I liked to do more solo playing, for the second fiddle is only there for support, twin-fiddle style. At home I tried my hand at playing all kinds of solo pieces, but in the Cajun Company there was no room for my aspirations as there was already a lead fiddler. I felt that the time had come to leave the group, but unfortunately I did that a bit too soon. When it happened we were in America to record a cd "La Robe de Rosalie". Half way through the recordings things went wrong between the band and me and therefore my part never got onto the cd, but was done by somebody else. If only it had happened a couple of months later. Sometimes things go that way but it swept me off my feet at first. You can go on making music, but then that's only for yourself. Then after some time I ran into Ron van Doorneveld and Ed van Dorp, who were playing in a country band. They liked to introduce cajun music into the band and they asked me if I was willing to help them with that. From the very first I made myself clear that I didn't want to become a member of the band, but that I was only there helping them with the cajun music. The leader of the band liked me to do the fiddle in their country repertoire. I was put under some pressure and then it became really clear to me that I wanted to go on with cajun music. Then I took my leave of that country band. Ed and Ron were very much devastated, but we kept in touch. When my plans for a new cajun band took more and more shape I asked Ron and Ed to join and to be honest they were actually waiting for that. The three of us got together at my place to play. I also had a cajun triangle and I asked Netty, my wife, to pick up that thing and join us. Well she took up that challenge and gave it a go. Only after a little time she managed quite well and that completed the Downtown Cajun Band.
Last year we made a demo at my place, recording it pure and simple with a mini-disc player. The result is amazing! Those recordings are very pure with a good balance between instruments and singing. I think this is very important because in my view a cd should live up to the way you sound on stage. I don't like those cd's full of tiddley bits that you don't hear anymore on live concerts. A group should be rated at its true value, both on the cd and live. With that point of view in mind we will start recording a full bodied cd in the last few months of this year. We hope that our ideas about traditional cajun music will be shared by many others.