By Bobby Ardoin
Eunice News
Correspondent
Musical notes from Cajun fiddles, guitars and accordions playing traditional French songs swept gently across the Lakeview Campground on Monday for the opening of the annual Balfa Cajun And Creole Heritage Week.
It was a fitting venue for the celebratory Cajun Prairie event, as the 12 hours of guitar, fiddle, accordion workshops, acoustic performances and a late evening barn dance songs crafted by the legendary Balfa brothers and their musical predecessors who once lived nearby.
The entertainment and deep dive into Cajun culture and French music history entertained the nationwide and international participants, campers and visitors who traveled to the RV park to absorb four days of the folk festival atmosphere off La. 13.
As Monday dipped into twilight, those waiting for the dance to begin sampled homemade cookies shortly after queuing up and sinking their spoons into bowls of chicken and sausage gumbo topped with potato salad.
Entertainment during the four-day event sponsored by the National Park Service, St. Landry Parish Tourist Commission and other private and corporate donors will include nightime musical acts featuring Horace Trahan and The Ossun Express and Steve Riley and Family.
There are also scheduled crawfish boils, fish fries and several tables Francaise hosting conversations in colloquial French.
Bruce Wilder traveled from Sharpsburg, Md. to attend the Monday sessions, while former Opelousas resident Josh Fontenot spent several hours under the tall campground pines, listening to Cajun songs and acoustical accompaniments.
Wilder, an accordion player, first fell in love with the Cajun musical aura at the Augusta Heritage Festival and is attending the event in order to perfect his musical style and appreciate a culture he has come to venerate.
Fontenot is soon returning to St. Landry from Arkansas in order to assume control of the family farming business.
“I’ve been away from my culture and I decided it was time to get back to my roots,” said Fontenot, as a band warmed up for the late night dance.
Mamou resident Robert Godwin said he attends the Balfa event annually.
“I just like to be around the music and the people, just talking to them. I also like to mingle with the people coming from up North,” Godwin said.
Pat and Cindy Onire, who live in Mississippi, said they have been regulars at Balfa events.
The couple performed a Monday afternoon guitar and fiddle duet outside the barn dance floor.
Grammy nominee Kevin Wimmer, who now lives in the Fingerlakes region of New York state, helped provide late afternoon Cajun fiddle lessons and jam sessions with Gina Forsyth, an itinerant musician who now lives in Breaux Bridge.
Wimmer is more than familiar with the Balfa Brothers music, which reached audiences nationwide and on the European continent.
Several decades ago Wimmer assisted Dewey Balfa with Cajun music workshops in West Virginia and remembered the substantial impact the Balfa family had on spreading French music worldwide.
“Dewey traveled the world and introduced it to Cajun music and culture. I lived in his outdoor kitchen in Basile and I was second fiddle in the Balfa Toujours Band,” said Wimmer.
The Balfa musical tradition, Wimmer said, has been sustained by his descendants.
Forsyth said the Balfa family kept the French musical tradition alive.
“They played more of the old-school Cajun style,” said Forsyth, as she returned her fiddle to its case after she and Wimmer conducted an afternoon jam session aided by a breeze that the 13 participants.
Mitchell and Renee Reed entertained the Monday diners with a 30-minute acoustical guitar and song set.
Renee Reed sang traditional French songs written and performed by the Balfa brothers and others.
One of the songs included in the Reed song list originated from the Wallace “Cheese” Read repertoire.
Ironically, Read, a distinguished Cajun fiddler for over three decades, lived with his family at his farmhouse located about two miles from Lakeview.