The Totally Random All Cajun Happy Hour Special – Happy Hour – It’s New Orleans
Happy Hour is billed as “Random conversation with folks who have nothing in common.” Anything that’s truly random will, sooner or later, appear to us not to be. Like flipping a coin and getting four “heads” in a row. Or inviting random people to sit around a table at a bar in New Orleans and discovering they’re all Cajun.
Louis Michot is the fiddle player and lead singer in the Cajun band Lost Bayou Ramblers. You don’t get much more Cajun than Louis and his tales of Petit Paris (aka St Martinville), living in Broussard, Lafayette, and out in the woods of Arnaudville. Louis plays two songs on this Happy Hour, accompanied on one of them by fellow Cajun Andrew Duhon.
Here in New Orleans we pronounce Andrew’s name Doo-Hon but if you go a few miles West (just how many is open to debate) it’s pronounced Doo-Yong. Until you get a few miles out of Lafayette, into Texas, where it reverts to doo-hon, as evidenced by Louis’ dog whose name was Clint Duhon, pronounced the Port Arthur way ’cause that’s where he came from.
Lizzie Guitreau is a Baton Rouge Cajun who decided that her inspiration from watching the TV show House as a kid should propel her into making TV shows rather than medicine. Lizzie went to UNO for film, started a band (of film makers) and is still working with them today, as Worklight Pictures. Ready for the next weird Cajun coincidence? Worklight Pictures are making a documentary about The Lost Bayou Rambers. It’s called On Va Continuer (we will continue) and premieres in February.
Brandon Beeyard can’t hide his true identity too long. Yes, it turns out his name is really spelled Bulliard, and he’s Cajun, from, wait for it, St Martinville aka Petit Paris, and his family is related to Louis’s wife’s family. Brandon is headed for self-propelled meta-stardom (no, that’s not a typo, though he might also be bound for mega-stardom) by way of his of his revalatory and inspirational life-story podcast, Dreamster.
The photos on this page were taken at Wayfare by Jill Lafleur – yes, that’s a Cajun name!