The Hackberry Ramblers (also known as the Riverside Ramblers), a

Grammy Award The Grammy Awards (stylized as GRAMMY), or simply known as the Grammys, are awards presented by the Recording Academy of the United States to recognize "outstanding" achievements in the music industry. They are regarded by many as the most pre ...

-nominated

Cajun music Cajun music (french: Musique cadienne), an emblematic music of Louisiana played by the Cajuns, is rooted in the ballads of the French-speaking Acadians of Canada. Although they are two separate genres, Cajun music is often mentioned in tandem w ...

band based in

Hackberry, Louisiana Hackberry is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Cameron Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 1,261 at the 2010 census, down from 1,699 in 2000. The losses were due to extensive damage from hurricanes ...

, formed in 1933. Since its heyday in the late 1930s it has become one of the most recognized names and influential groups in Cajun music. The group, which continues to tour and perform, has one of the longest histories of a musical group in the United States of America, and while its lineup has changed many times since its conception, its founders — fiddler Luderin Darbone and accordionist Edwin Duhon — led the band until Duhon's death in 2006. (Darbone died November 21, 2008.) While the roots of the band lie in its Cajun music repertoire, the Ramblers perform a broad swath of American music, from

Western swing Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the region's Western string bands. It is dance music, often with an up-tempo beat, which attracted huge crowds to dance ...

to blues and

rockabilly Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music. It dates back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the Southern United States, South. As a genre it blends the sound of Western music (North America), Western music ...

, and much of their sound blends them all.

Early years

In 1930 Luderin Darbone met a guitarist called Edwin Duhon and together they formed the nucleus of a band they named the Hackberry Ramblers in honor of their hometown. By 1933 they were on the radio and signed with

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westin ...

Bluebird Records Bluebird Records is a record label best known for its low-cost releases, primarily of kids' music, blues and jazz in the 1930s and 1940s. It was founded in 1932 as a lower-priced RCA Victor subsidiary label of RCA Victor. Bluebird became known ...

. In 1936, they recorded "Jolie Blonde", "Oh Josephine, Ma Josephine", "One Step De L'Amour" and "Faux Pas Tu Bray Cherie". Darbone and Duhon were the first musicians to bring electronic amplification to area dance halls, running a public address system off the idling engine of Darbone's Model-A Ford. The band performed at festivals, including FitzGerald's American Music Festival in 1997. Their eclectic repertoire included

country music Country (also called country and western) is a genre of popular music that originated in the Southern and Southwestern United States in the early 1920s. It primarily derives from blues, church music such as Southern gospel and spirituals, o ...

and

jazz music Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a major ...

, and

blues music Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the A ...

. Due to a sponsorship deal with

Montgomery Ward Montgomery Ward is the name of two successive U.S. retail corporations. The original Montgomery Ward & Co. was a world-pioneering mail-order business and later also a leading department store chain that operated between 1872 and 2001. The curren ...

, the band adopted the name "The Riverside Ramblers". In 2002, Darbone and Duhon received a prestigious

National Heritage Fellowship The National Heritage Fellowship is a lifetime honor presented to master folk and traditional artists by the National Endowment for the Arts. Similar to Japan's Living National Treasure award, the Fellowship is the United States government's ...

from the Folk Arts Program of the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the federa ...

. The

Country Music Hall of Fame The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, is one of the world's largest museums and research centers dedicated to the preservation and interpretation of American vernacular music. Chartered in 1964, the museum has amas ...

has honored the group; it holds enshrined many of the founding members' instruments.

James "Glen" Croker

Croker died at the age of 77 on August 23, 2011.

Current members

* Glen Croker -

Electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gu ...

* Johnny Faulk -

Upright bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...

* Ben Sandmel - Drums * John Parker -

References

Other sources

Musician Edwin Duhon dead at 95
United Press International, Inc. Retrieved 20 Mar 2006. * Sandmel, Ben.

. '' ZydE-Zine''. Retrieved 14 August 2005. * John Wirt, "‘Hackberry Ramblers’ Co-Founder Dead uderin Darboneat 95," The Advocate aton Rouge, La. 23 November 2008, http://www.2theadvocate.com/news/34944819.html, accessed 1 December 2008.
Luderin Darbone 1913-2008
Arhoolie Records. {{Authority control American folk musical groups

Early years

James "Glen" Croker

Current members

See also

References

Other sources