Lafayette (LA) Daily Advertiser, December 29, 1998

Leo Soileau's fiddle was just right for Cajun swing

Accordion disappear from band

by Jim Bradshaw

Even though Leo Soileau's first record with Mayeus LaFleur was pure Cajun, it was during the 1930s that he really hit his stride, when country influences brought the fiddle back into the lead in Cajun music.

After Lafleur's death in 1928, Soileau teamed with another accordion player, Moïse Robin of Arnaudville, and they made several records together. Soileau formed the Three Aces in 1934, when western music was beginning to grow more popular in southwest Louisiana, and Cajun bands were dropping the accordion and picking up stringed instruments. The band included Soileau on fiddle, Floyd Shreve and Dewey Landry on rhythm guitar, and Tony Gonzalez on bass and drums.

According to John Broven's history of music in south Louisiana, "Apart from the Cajun tradition, their major inspiration came from western swing, a cheerful, spirited amalgam of swing, blues, ragtime, and fiddle music that originated in Texas. After signing for Bluebird (records), Soileau's string band -- without an accordionist, but with the first drummer to play on Cajun sessions -- made popular recordings of "La Valse De Gueydan" and "Hackberry Hop" ... and the familiar "La Gran Mamou."

By 1935, the band had become Soileau's Four Aces, and had moved to the Decca label. In 1941, he and several members of his band drove from Crowley to Chicago in a Model A Ford to record a repertoire of country songs in Cajun style. Among Soileau's recordings were Cajun versions of such American standards as "Red River Valley" and "Birmingham Jail," as well as polkas, Mexican songs, and practically anything else that he thought would strike the popular fancy. Altogether, his band cut nearly 100 records during the 1930s and early 1940s.

Pierre Daigle recorded in his book, "Tears, Love, and Laughter," "(Soileau) likes to recall that trip to Chicago in 1941. He left Louisiana in an old Model A Ford that everybody said would never make the trip. He told them that if the car stopped he would sell it for junk and continue by train. The car made the trip to Chicago and we got his recording of Jolie Blonde, his biggest hit."

In the 1940s, Soileau and the Four Aces separated, but Soileau continued to record with a new band, Leo Soileau's Rhythm Boys, until World War II when Decca quit recording Cajun artists.

Soileau and his band played for eight years at the Silver Star Club in Lake Charles. LeRoy (Happy Fats) LeBlanc was a member of the band at the time and did the announcing on daily radio broadcasts that were made from the club. After the war he played for two years at the Showboat Club in Orange, Texas. He made frequent radio broadcasts, particularly from KVOL in Lafayette and KPLC in Lake Charles, but he never recorded again.

Soileau quit playing altogether in the late 1940s and moved back to Ville Platte, where he was born Jan. 19, 1904. He worked there with his brothers as a general contractor and died there on Aug. 2, 1980.