“Farewell” and “Take Courage”

By Melati Kaye

Earlier this year, Kitchen Sister Davia Nelson interviewed Cajun music great Ann Savoy about her life. How, Davia wanted to know, was Savoy first introduced to this genre of music, from the heart of Louisiana and as of the 1960s, not well known outside.

Listening to Cleoma Falcon singing “Prends Donc Courage,” Savoy replied.  Twenty-six and  “a bit lost” at the time, Savoy heard this “haunting voice” over an LP and was immediately entranced.

But the melody Savoy heard that day was more ancient –at least 200 years more so.

“A lot of early Cajun music came from when the radio came to Louisiana,” Savoy explained. “They’d hear a song on the radio and say I like that and they’d play it on a guitar and accordion… leaving out half the words, changing the arrangements and singing their own interpretation of the music, in French!”

Essentially, Cajun music evolved as a musical conversation. Songs were a form of retelling or oral history. But with Prends Courage, Falcon was standing on the shoulders of many more giants then she realized.

After some internet sleuthing and a bit of help from record producer Joe Boyd, who was passing through town, I pulled together a surprising musical lineage to Savoy’s inspiration: this early Cajun recording had its roots in a Croatian folksong, that came to Cleoma Falcon by way of 19th century American ditty and the last Queen of Hawaii—Lili’uokalani.

“Aloha ‘Oe” –the iteration that Falcon heard was Lili`uokalani’s. Legendarily, the queen had composed this lover’s farewell during a horseback ride on the windward side of Oahu in 1878. Her inspiration came from watching a mixed couple taking leave of one another. Later she sang the song in her own farewell to her kingdom when Hawaii was incorporated into the United States, the 50^th state, in 1959.

Lili`nokalani’s friend Charlie B. Wilson later pointed out that the tune of the verse resembled  “ Rock beside the Sea,” a ditty that American church music composer Charles Coozet Converse came up with in 1857. A Wikipedia entry indicates that Converse himself borrowed the melody from a Croatian folk song “Sedi Mera Na Kanen.”

Check the melodies out for yourself to hear the similarities.

Cleoma Breaux and Joe Falcon’s rendition of “Prends Donc Courage

1911 recording of Aloha ‘Oe by Madam Alapai

Tamburica 5 plays ” Sedi Mara na kamen studencu

Through its centuries’ long morph; the song has remained one of farewell –either to a lover or a country. Converse waxed nostalgic about the “winds of morn” and signs of spring on his “lone rock by the sea.” Lili`nokalani talked of “sweet memories” and how “true love” never departing, all amid the “`ahihi lehua” flowers.

Falcon’s version was the farewell that strayed the furthest from the original Croatian version. Hers has no sappiness. She doesn’t dwell on the leave taking but instead calls for courage, not just on her own part but that of her lover’s too. She sings, “Take courage for it is the end of the year and I am going to go away with you. A lot of hearts are going to be broken but we must be strong and brave and go.”

And it was that determined sentiment that the then 26-year-old Ann Savoy heard that convinced her to see Les Cajunes at the National Folk Festival in Washington DC. There she met her husband Marc who is one of the last traditional Cajun accordion makers. The two moved to Eunice, Louisiana and had four children—all but one of who—is in a Cajun band. The family is widely considered to have begun a revival in interest in Cajun music — all born from a Croatian farewell song.

Also, check back for an audio slideshow on Ann Savoy’s life and love of music, to be uploaded soon.

 

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