The Ragin’ Cajun: Memoir of a Louisiana Man (Music and the American South)

Doug Kershaw’s musical profession as a fiddler, songwriter, and singer has spanned over seventy years. Born on a houseboat tied to a cypress tree within the swamps of Southwest Louisiana, his household adopted the fishing up and down the Mermantau River. Alligators and snakes lurked beneath the waters. Alcoholism and violence lurked above. The fais do-dos, these standard houseboat dances, had been the one escape from a harsh lifestyle.

Till the Kershaws had been pressured to maneuver into city following a household tragedy, Kershaw spoke solely Cajun-French. He obtained his first pair of sneakers when he was eight years previous, the identical 12 months he started supporting his mom by taking part in fiddle and shining sneakers. All through his profession, he has mastered twenty-eight devices. Due to his signature fashion of music-making and entertaining, Kershaw is taken into account by many to be a consummate performer and storyteller.

His is a basic American story of how one younger man rose from poverty within the swamps to the stage at Carnegie Corridor. Regardless of the pitfalls recognized to many entertainers–alcohol and cocaine rehab, divorces, scandal, chapter, music enterprise woes, even cancer–Doug Kershaw’s life was crammed with thrilling and comedian adventures. The proof is within the wonderful individuals he met alongside the way in which: Roger Miller, Johnny Money, Mary Tyler Moore, Kris Kristofferson, Bob Dylan, Leon Russell, Jean Shepherd, Chet Atkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Invoice Wyman, and lots of extra.

Kershaw remembers the dangerous and the nice with the identical humor that helped him survive all of it. Whereas many accolades have since come his means, his biggest satisfaction was listening to his autobiographical music, “Louisiana Man,” broadcast again from house earlier than Apollo 12 landed on the moon.