D L Menard

Affectionately known as "the Cajun Hank Williams,"D L. (Doris Leon) Menard was born April 14, 1932 in Erath, Louisiana, where he still lives. The only child of Acadian farmers, Menard worked in the cane fields and the cotton fields of south Louisiana as a young child. At night, he tuned in to country stations from Texas and Shreveport, Louisiana, home of the then famous "Louisiana Hayride."

He learned to sing country tunes in English long before he sang in French. His father was a popular harmonica player and his uncle played guitar. Menard purchased his first guitar from a Sears Roebuck catalogue when he was 16 years old and asked a member of his uncle's band to teach him how to play basic chords.

A year later, he played his first Cajun dance for pay at a night club and has been playing music and writing songs ever since.

In 1951, the 19-year-old Menard had the opportunity to meet and talk to his long-time idol, Hank Williams Sr., at a club in New Iberia when Williams performed there.

Williams encouraged Menard to be proud of his heritage and play his own type of music. Hank told Menard, "All music is good if it's yours.".

He joined a band called the Louisiana Aces, and shortly after, in 1952, he took over the band's leadership. They cut their first single in July 1961 – with this track on the flip side:

1. Louisiana Aces Special – July 1961 – The Back Door & Other Classics – Tk 1 – 1.55

DL continued to balance his music career with a variety of jobs. He composed his most famous song, "La Porte en Arriere" while working at a gas station. The story goes that when the Louisiana Aces were on their way to the studio to record their second single a year later, they argued about whether or not to record a particular track that DL had written. In the end they agreed to put this next number on the B side:

2. La Porte en Arriere – July 1962 – The Back Door & Other Classics – Tk 2 – 2.15

When the song – which is all about the perils of approaching life through the back door rather than the front, was released it went on to sell more than 500,000 copies and has become a Cajun classic right up there with Jolie Blon.

The first two tracks we have played today come from a compilation CD of all DLs early years called The Back Door and other Cajun Classics. The songs are all in Cajun French and translations are not given, but the titles are in English and give you the theme of a lot of these Cajun numbers – with song titles like ‘She Didn’t Know I was Married’ then ‘It’s Too Late You’re Divorced‘ and finally ‘I Can Live a Better Life’.

3. It’s Too Late Your Divorced – Nov 1975 – The Back Door & Other Classics – Tk 11 – 2.32

In 1985 Menard released his first album sung in English. It was his ‘least Cajun’ styled album, but most commercially successful and featured a number of Hank Williams tracks including a tearjerker called My Son Calls Another Man Daddy, and a similar styled number written by Menard titled The Judge Did Not Believe my Story. Here is the title track:

4. Cajun Saturday Night – 1985 – Cajun Saturday Night – Tk 1 – 2.22

5. The Bachelors Life – 1985 – Cajun Saturday Night – Tk 9 – 1.40

Continue with another from the same album – this is an old Hank Williams number

6. On The Banks of the Old Ponchartrain – 1985 – Cajun Saturday Night – Tk 10 – 3.39

Three years later, in 1988 he released another album, this with a set list of more traditional two-steps and waltzes. This one is called No Matter Where You At, There You Are.

Track from this album with echoes of the Hank Williams track in the opening bars

7. Big Texas – 1988 –No Matter Where You At – Tk 5 – 2.55

Another from this album:

8. Lafayette Two Step – 1988 –No Matter Where You At – Tk 11 – 2.38

In 1993, an album he recorded with Eddy Le Jeune and Ken Smith called Le Trio Cadien was nominated for a Grammy Award in the Best Traditional Folk Album category

Two years later in 1995, DL released another very traditional Cajun album for the Swallow Records, the local label he had started out with in 1961.

And we will have a little diversion here. Swallow Records was founded by one James Floyd Soileau, a Cajun who was six years younger than DL who grew up in a Cajun community around Ville Platte, in central La. Young Floyd grew up speaking Cajun French and did not speak English until attending school at the age of 6 years.

In high school, Floyd he did an afternoon Cajun music show on a local radio station, and after graduating he opened a small record store, Floyd's Record Shop and discovered that although people were still interested in them, Cajun French records were no longer being produced.

With the financial help of a juke box operator friend who wanted new French records for his juke boxes, he launched his own label, in 1957 at age 19, and since then, Swallow Records has released literally hundreds of singles and albums of Cajun French music, and his Swallow Publications publishes two books on the Cajun French language. And you can get all these books albums and a host of other interesting stuff from Floyds Record Store which is still going strong, with a great website and mail order facility.

Anyhow, back to DL Menard with two tracks from the Cajun Memories album. Although all the material on the album was new, it was recorded within in what were called the ‘traditional guidelines’ so the songs sound as though they have been around for many years

9. Listen to Me When I am Talking to You – 1995 – Cajun Memories – Tk 1 – 2.59

A couple more tracks from the same album – the first celebrating the old man who can still dance all night long, and the second praising the virtues of a wife who stays home to raise the family while the husband is away earning an income as a musician

10. Snow on the Roof – 1995 – Cajun Memories – Tk 9 – 3.07

11. The Good Woman – 1995 – Cajun Memories – Tk 14 – 2.55

Over the years, DL has toured extensively, although never to Australia, and has received many awards for his contribution to Cajun life and culture. He is in the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame, and the Cajun Music Hall of Fame.

Menard continues to supplement his income as a musician by building rocking chairs in the factory that he owns with his wife, Louella. Interestingly his webpage on the the website of the Louisiana Folklife Centre lists him as DL Menard - Chairmaker and Cajun Musician, in that order, and goes on to say:

Louella's kitchen is open to anyone wanting to enjoy Cajun coffee and food. The furnishing her kitchen are products of the D. L. Menard chair factory, a rambling one-man shop located next door. DL makes most of the chair parts from the finest ash wood obtained from the local sawmill. Louella weaves the chair seats.

At age 75 DL is still performing, and early last month, in April 2009,he was featured at a tribute show ‘The Life & Times of DL Menard’ in Eunice, La’s self styled Prairie Cajun Capital.

Joining DL Menard on stage was the Jambalaya Cajun Band, Hugh Harris, entrepreneur and the record store founder Floyd Soileau, DL’s son Larry Menard and daughter Becky Moreland. The publicity said that the show, hosted in Cajun French, ‘was a family-oriented program and dancing is encouraged.’ The show closed out with a version of this track released on his 1988 album No Matter Where You At, There You Are

12. Lets Gallop to Mamou – 1988 –No Matter Where You At – Tk 3 – 2.34

We will go out with a version of DLs song The Back Door, sung in French by Emmylou Harris who was guesting on a 1998 an album called The McGarrigle Hour, put out by Canadian singer songwriter sisters Kate and Anna McGarrigle. (Kate was once married to Louden Wainwright)

13. Porte En Arriere – 1998 –The McGarrigle Hour – Tk 5 – 3.05