‘Brand New Old Songs: Recycling Archives in South Louisiana’ – A lecture by Barry Jean Ancelet, Professor Emeritus of Francophone Studies and Center for Louisiana Studies Research Fellow at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.

Ancelet has published numerous articles and books and given many papers on various aspects of Louisiana’s Cajun and Creole cultures and languages. He has also contributed to documentary films, radio programs and cds on Cajun and Creole music. For many years Ancelet hosted the “Rendez-vous des Cajuns,” a weekly live radio show from the Liberty Theater in Eunice, Louisiana, and he currently serves as director of Lafayette’s annual Festivals Acadiens et Créoles.

The archive of the Center for Acadian and Creole Folklore at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette was created in 1977, not simply as a repository of recordings and information, but to serve as a resource for cultural recycling. Contemporary musicians are encouraged to consult the collection as a source for “new” material, resulting in new imaginative and creative versions of ancient songs.

The most recent example of this ongoing process in South Louisiana is the recycling of songs from the remarkable repertoire of Caesar Vincent, a subsistence farmer from Vermilion Parish who was recorded in the 1950s by Catherine Blanchet and Harry Oster. A veritable Who’s Who of contemporary Cajun and Creole musicians and singers came together this past year to record a double cd of brand new old songs out of the archives.

This program is free and open to the public, and sponsored by the Department of Folklore and Ethnomusicology and hosted by the Archives of Traditional Music.

For more information, contact the Archives of Traditional Music at (812) 855-4679.