ROUSES_SeptOct2019_Magazine

The Cajun anthem by michael tisserand

Bruce Springsteen, Waylon Jennings and Warren Zevon have all performed it. So did zydeco king Clifton Chenier. Every weekend across South Louisiana, Cajun bands play it while waltzing couples glide across wooden dance floors. It is “Joli Blon,” (other spellings include “Jolie Blonde” and “Jole Blon”), beloved as “the Cajun national anthem,” and first recorded in 1929 as a plaintive waltz by the Breaux family, with Cléoma Breaux Falcon singing its heartbreaking lyrics of true love’s elusiveness. The Cajun swing band The Hackberry Ramblers first recorded it under its current name of “Jolie Blonde,” and in 1946 Cajun fiddler Harry Choates had a Billboard Top 10 hit with his version, which Rolling Stone would name one of country music’s hundred best recordings.

To complete the waltzing tailgate parties, McNeese and Bayou Teche brewery teamed up last year to introduce

B ut nobody does “Joli Blon” quite like they do at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Go to any school football game at Cowboy Stadium; when McNeese scores, the band lights into one of college sports’ few waltz-time fight songs (another fight-waltz can be found in St. Olaf College up in the polka country of Minnesota). While pom-poms sparkle in the sun and students bedecked in blue and gold sway and clap in time, the McNeese band leans into the song’s 3/4 time until the whole thing culminates in wild cheers. It is the kind of defining crowd moment that a sunny college sports afternoon is built on. McNeese traces the history of its fight song to a former school band director named Eddie See. A popular musician

with wide-ranging tastes, See had a “wonderful reputation in this country being an old Crowleyite,” reported the Crowley Daily Signal in 1934. The story goes that See came across a student named Robert “Pluto” Landry — a barbershop singer who went on to become a music teacher himself — playing “Joli Blon” on the piano. See soon adapted it for the McNeese Band, even adding the “ Vesti la giubba ” aria from Ruggero Leoncavallo’s 1892 opera Pagliacci as an improbable crowd-hyping intro. Over the decades, McNeese had been trying out a number of fight songs, including a Jax Beer jingle in the early 1950s. But the Pagliacci -infused “Joli Blon” stuck. McNeese named it the official school song in 1970.

“Joli Blon,” a new official McNeese beer. Fittingly, it is a blonde ale.

FAN FARE

See our catering-to-go menu at www.rouses.com.

We also have a great selection of ready-to-serve party trays and platters in our deli every game day.

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SEPTEMBER•OCTOBER 2019