"This Should Go On Forever" is a popular song of the

south Louisiana The Port of South Louisiana (french: Port de la Louisiane du Sud) extends 54 miles (87 km) along the Mississippi River between New Orleans, Louisiana and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, centering approximately at LaPlace, Louisiana, which serves as t ...

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm an ...

genre known as

swamp pop Swamp pop is a music genre indigenous to the Acadiana region of south Louisiana and an adjoining section of southeast Texas. Created in the 1950s by young Cajuns and Creoles, it combines New Orleans–style rhythm and blues, country and wester ...

. It was written by J. D. "Jay" Miller and Bernard Jolivette

Background

King Karl (real name Bernard Jolivette), a black Creole swamp pop musician, composed the song around 1958. (Producer J. D. "Jay" Miller is listed as a co-writer even though he did not actually help to compose the tune.) Karl intended to record the song for the Excello label of

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, for which he, his bandmate

Guitar Gable Gabriel Perrodin (August 17, 1937 – January 28, 2017), known as Guitar Gable, was an American Louisiana blues, swamp blues and swamp pop musician. He was best known for recording the original version of "This Should Go On Forever", and hi ...

(Gabriel Perrodin), and their band the Musical Kings had recorded other swamp pop compositions. Excello did not like the song, however, and as a result Karl's version at first remained unreleased. In the meantime,

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 ...

swamp pop musician

Rod Bernard Rod Bernard () was an American singer who helped to pioneer the musical genre known as "swamp pop", which combined New Orleans-style rhythm and blues, country and western, and Cajun and black Creole music. He is generally considered one of th ...

Opelousas :''Opelousas is also a common name of the flathead catfish.'' Opelousas (french: Les Opélousas; Spanish: ''Los Opeluzás'') is a small city and the parish seat of St. Landry Parish, Louisiana, United States. Interstate 49 and U.S. Route 190 ...

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 ...

, heard Karl and his group perform the tune at the local Moonlight Inn nightclub. When Bernard learned that Excello had no intention of releasing the song, he asked Karl if he could record it for Floyd Soileau's newly formed Jin label of Ville Platte, Louisiana. Karl approved, and Bernard and his group, the Twisters, recorded the song that year for Jin, using the same studio — Miller's MasterTrak Studio of Crowley, Louisiana — that Karl and his band had used to record their still-unreleased original version. In late 1958, Bernard's version became a regional hit in south Louisiana and

east Texas East Texas is a broadly defined cultural, geographic, and ecological region in the eastern part of the U.S. state of Texas that comprises most of 41 counties. It is primarily divided into Northeast and Southeast Texas. Most of the region con ...

, and, licensed to the Argo label of

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. In the US, it rose to the top 20 on the Hot 100 and R&B charts in 1959. Surprised by the song's success, Excello quickly released King Karl's original version. Other group, sought to record the song, by then, however, the general public regarded Bernard's version as the authoritative version. As a result, it was Bernard who appeared on

American Bandstand ''American Bandstand'', abbreviated ''AB'', is an American music-performance and dance television program that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989, and was hosted from 1956 until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as the pr ...

, The

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Show, and elsewhere.

Chart positions

Cover versions

Other swamp pop groups, released their own versions of the song to capitalize on Bernard's success including: *Doug Charles and the

Boogie Kings The Boogie Kings (also known as The Fabulous Boogie Kings) are an American Cajun swamp pop and blue-eyed soul group. History The band formed in Eunice, Louisiana in 1955 consisting of teenaged members Doug Ardoin, Skip Morris, Bert Miller and Har ...

*Gene Terry and the Downbeats *It has also been covered by Mike Ladd on Shadow Records NR8816 and is credited only to "J. Miller" on the 45 label.

Legacy

Today, "This Should Go On Forever" is considered an early classic of the swamp pop genre and is frequently performed by live bands in

dancehalls Dance hall in its general meaning is a hall for dancing. From the earliest years of the twentieth century until the early 1960s, the dance hall was the popular forerunner of the discothèque or nightclub. The majority of towns and cities in ...

and

festivals A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, Melā, mela, or Muslim holida ...

in south Louisiana and east Texas.

References

Sources

* Shane K. Bernard, ''Swamp Pop: Cajun and Creole Rhythm and Blues'' (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1996). * John Broven, ''South to Louisiana: Music of the Cajun Bayous'' (Gretna: Pelican, 1983). {{Authority control Music of Louisiana 1958 singles Swamp pop music Songs written by J. D. "Jay" Miller 1958 songs Argo Records singles