Louisiana Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a U.S. state, state in the Deep South and South Central United States, South Central regions of the United States. It is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 20th-smal ...

Cajun The Cajuns (; French: ''les Cadjins'' or ''les Cadiens'' ), also known as Louisiana ''Acadians'' (French: ''les Acadiens''), are a Louisiana French ethnicity mainly found in the U.S. state of Louisiana. While Cajuns are usually described as ...

Allons à Lafayette "Allons à Lafayette" is the B-side of a 78rpm single recorded by Joe Falcon and Cléoma Breaux in 1928. The song is based on an older traditional tune called "Jeunes gens campagnard". While there is some mystery on the reason Okeh Records ...

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

Early life

Joe was born in Roberts Cove, Louisiana located nearby Bayou Plaquemine Brule and began playing accordion at the age of seven. He was the fifth child of Pierre Illaire Falcón and Marie Arvilia Boudreaux. His shares both

Cajun The Cajuns (; French: ''les Cadjins'' or ''les Cadiens'' ), also known as Louisiana ''Acadians'' (French: ''les Acadiens''), are a Louisiana French ethnicity mainly found in the U.S. state of Louisiana. While Cajuns are usually described as ...

and Isleño ancestry as his paternal great-grandparents, José Félix Falcón and María Antonia Damasa Falcón, were descendants of the Canary Islander colonists who settled in Valenzuela along

Bayou Lafourche Bayou Lafourche ( ), originally called Chetimachas River or La Fourche des Chetimaches, (the fork of the Chitimacha), is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed June 20, 2011 ba ...

. His ancestors Cristóbal Falcón and Gaspar Falcón were born in Telde,

Gran Canaria Gran Canaria (, ; ), also Grand Canary Island, is the third-largest and second-most-populous island of the Canary Islands, an archipelago off the Atlantic coast of Northwest Africa which is part of Spain. the island had a population of that co ...

. His mother Marie was of

Acadian The Acadians (french: Acadiens , ) are an ethnic group descended from the French who settled in the New France colony of Acadia during the 17th and 18th centuries. Most Acadians live in the region of Acadia, as it is the region where the ...

descent.

Music career

His career as a professional musician began some years later at a ''fais-do-do'' hall called the "Blue Goose" (Oneziphore Guidry's dance hall) in Rayne, Louisiana when the regular band didn't show up and the dance hall owner insisted that Joe take their place. As a young man, Joe was friends with accordionist Amédée Breaux of the legendary Breaux family and sometimes accompanied him on triangle. Amédée's sister, Cléoma, a gifted guitarist and singer, became Joe's frequent accompanist and they married not long after the onset of their recording career. In April 1928, a jeweler from Rayne, Louisiana and native New Orleanian, George Burrow, persuaded Columbia records to record Joe and his wife Cléoma and their friend, Leon Meche, by agreeing to purchase 500 records. However, in the hotel recording studio, Meche backed down; scared he would mess up the recording. Joe stepped up and sang instead. In a 1962 interview with Mike Seeger, Columbia executive, Frank Buckley Walker, recalls recording the duo:

So I went up to Lafayette for a weekend. I happened to know something of the story of the Cajuns and was astounded at the interest that there was in their little Saturday night dances. A single singer would have a little concertina-type instrument and a one-string fiddle and a triangle, those were the instruments, but they would always have a singer and of course they sang in Cajun. And to me it had a funny sound. So I brought down a little group. I think his name was Joe Falcon. I brought him down to New Orleans, and we recorded just to have something different. We put it on the market, and it had tremendous sales.

Recorded on April 27, 1928 in

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music, Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the North American division of Japanese Conglomerate (company), conglomerate Sony. It was founded on Janua ...

in the summer of 1928. Thousands of copies were sold and Falcón became the first Cajun-recording star, playing to packed dance halls in Louisiana and neighboring

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

. Joe and Cleoma recorded more material at sessions in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

in August 1928 and

Atlanta Atlanta ( ) is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is the seat of Fulton County, the most populous county in Georgia, but its territory falls in both Fulton and DeKalb counties. With a population of 498,71 ...

in April 1929. After a hiatus caused by the onset of

the Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagion ...

, the couple resumed their recording career in 1934, recording again in New York, then at

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

San Antonio ("Cradle of Freedom") , image_map = , mapsize = 220px , map_caption = Interactive map of San Antonio , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = United States , subdivision_type1= State , subdivision_name1 = Texas , subdivision_t ...

in 1937. Cléoma died suddenly on April 9, 1941, but Joe continued to perform as leader of Joe Falcon and His Silver Bell String Band, which included his second wife, Theresa Meaux, on drums. Despite this success, Joe's career flagged in the late 1930s with the increasing popularity of fiddle-based country-and-western influenced bands. His music came to be considered old-fashioned and he stopped recording after his last session in 1937. Though Joe continued to play local dances into the 1960s, he declined to make further recordings, maintaining he had been cheated by record companies. :* '' Allons a Lafayette'
Listen (MP3)
:* ''

Madame Sosthene "La Valse de Madame Sosten" is the A-side of the 78-RPM single #17000, recorded by Joe Falcon and Cléoma Breaux in 1934.

'
Listen (MP3)
:* ''La Valse Crowley'
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Discography

* "Allons à Lafayette"/"Waltz That Carried Me To My Grave" (