George A. Fontenot (1907-1977) was a Cajun fiddler and barber in Ville Platte, LA. He made four recordings (singing on three of them) for Floyd Soileau’s Swallow Records, also based in Ville Platte. Two songs with Herman Fontenot, also on fiddle, were recorded in 1965 and released as a single. Two other songs were recorded a year or two later, with Harry Fontenot on accordion, and released on a Swallow LP. (It is quite likely that none of these Fontenots were closely related to one another: FindaGrave.com shows 3,975 matches for the name Fontenot in Ville Platte’s Evangeline parish alone!) George Fontenot was active in the Ville Platte music scene in the 1960s and 1970s, performing regularly at the annual Cotton Festival and its Contredanse, and the Maison de Sante Nursing Home. He won first prize for fiddle in the 1965 Mamou Acadian Music Contest, and performed at community events with his trio or quartet (the Cajun Cousins), often including guitarist J. Loudric Soileau or left-handed fiddler Louis “Pecan” Joubert. Fontenot also taught the basics of guitar to young students and sold fiddles he made from aged wood. His first fiddle took 80 hours to complete, and when he made one in 60 hours, he observed, "I'm getting faster at it all the time.”
[La Misere du Cajun, George & Herman Fontenot ('Herman & George'), Swallow 10161, recorded 1965, matrix S-6411]
The flip side of this disk is La Gig a George: • CAJUN FIDDLES: George ...
7 июн 2024
