‘Mathilda’ is widely considered to be the defining Swamp Pop song and an unofficial anthem for the genre. Singer Huey “Cookie” Thierry joined Shelton Dunaway’s Boogie Ramblers and the band eventually became Cookie and The Cupcakes, via the rather more mundane Cookie and the Boogie Ramblers. But that’s another article – and one that’s coming soon! Cookie and The Cupcakes – ‘ Mathilda’ ![]() The genre lost ground with the British Invasion of the 60s but, like a phoenix rising from the ashes, it would give birth to the newer, harder-edged “Swamp Rock”, replacing the influence of Louisiana R&B with the rockier sound of the British Beat boom. Adcock, who both cite Swamp Pop as a major influence on their music. The influence of the genre lives on in the modern Cajun music of artists such as Steve Riley and C.C. Among the most famous songs of the Swamp Pop genre would be ‘Sea of Love’, ‘I’m Leaving it Up to You’, ‘Let’s Do the Cajun Twist’, ‘Later Alligator’ (made famous by Bill Haley and the Comets) and Johnnie Allan’s definitive version of Chuck Berry’s ‘Promised Land’. The genre’s heyday spanned a relatively short period, generally accepted as being from 1957 through to 1964, but during this period gave us some outstanding songs that have lived on through regular airplay and a variety of cover versions. For the first time, Cajun artists were finding substantial markets not just in the wider United States but also in overseas countries such as Japan and the UK. By the late 1950s and into the early 60s, Swamp Pop was serving up some very successful records and the artists themselves were drawing big crowds and this music wasn’t just selling in America. It was a purely economic exercise but one which reaped some rich cultural rewards. In each case it was their distinctive Cajun family name that would be jettisoned in favour of a more widely appealing persona and the music they would generate would, similarly, have that Cajun identifying sound wrapped into a more marketable output for the youth of America. The singers would change their names to disguise their Cajun backgrounds – John Allen Guillot became the famous Johnnie Allen, Terry Gene DeRouan became Gene Terry, Robert Charles Guidry became Bobby Charles. This was the beginnings of what the critics would come to refer to as “Swamp Pop”, a genre typified by honky-tonk piano, electric instruments and brass sections, swirling around emotional lyrics of loves lost and lovers done wrong. It was time to ditch the fiddle and triangle in favour of electric guitars and drums, start singing in English and wrap some down-home R&B and country around their Cajun and Creole songs. ![]() They were watching rock and roll and country singers like Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash, selling outside of their southern catchment areas, and they started to realise that folk-based traditional melodies, with lyrics sung in a French patois, weren’t going to cut it with a wider audience. ![]() They liked their traditional music but could see that it didn’t have mass appeal outside of Louisiana and South East Texas. Back in the 1950s, a lot of young, Cajun musicians were thinking along the same lines. In the 1950s Cajun music and Rock and Roll got together and produced a daughter – they called her “Swamp Pop”!īy now, regular readers will know I’m quite a fan of Cajun and Zydeco music but even I acknowledge that it can be something of an acquired taste.
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