A brief history…
Horace Trahan is currently lead singer and top-notch accordion player of an increasingly popular zydeco band. However, he started in the 1990s as a traditional Cajun music player and was raised in a traditional French-speaking household in Ossun, LA and heard Cajun music all his life. Cajun music fans recognize in his soulful, plaintive voice clear echoes of LeJeune and his ability to compose his own songs like “Amitie Casser” which draws on the same basic human feelings of sorrow and heartache. His zydeco novelty songs, like “High School Breakdown” and “That Butt Thing” have become regional favorites.
Growing up, Horace was more interested in rock & roll than Cajun music. Yet, by the time he turned 16 he decided he wanted to learn the accordion. His first cousin, Felix Richard, who also taught Zachary Richard to play the accordion, gave young Horace his first lessons. From Felix, he also developed a reverence for the legendary Iry Lejeune.
According to Barry Ancelet in his liner notes to Ossun Blues, Trahan’s first public performance occurred after a staff member at the Liberty Theater in Eunice heard him performing at the afternoon jam session held next door at the Jean Lafitte Acadian Culture Center. During the evening show, she persuaded Ancelet to ask Trahan to come on stage to play one song. He sang Iry’s “Viens Me Chercher”, which he learned from Felix, and performed all alone sitting in his chair with his accordion. His performance brought tears to the eyes of many in the audience, who gave him a spontaneous standing ovation.
Awards…
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Accordionist of the Year – Horace Trahan (CFMA 1997)
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Best First Recording of the Year – “Ossun Express” (CFMA 1997)
Related links…
Reviews…
Tiny scraps of paper feed the bandstand. Onto those tiny scraps of paper have been scribbled Louisianan magic words. Magic words with the proven power to make whole bodies physically smile (“Motor Dude Special”), to sway heartstrings (“I’m Coming Home”). to jerk tears (“Nothing Takes the Place of You”), or activate singalong reflexes you never knew you had (“Iko Iko”). In concept, at least, that’s how Horace Trahan built his whole new set: BY SPECIAL REQUEST. Fan favorites, lobbied for from dance floors and festivals pits that he and his spiffy Dino Baffetti accordion have flamed along the way, eventually reached critical mass to warrant this all-covers album. And Trahan certainly knows a little about the Cajun Nation and the Kingdom of Zydeco. By the age 18, he, under the apprenticeship of one Acadian legend in Felix Richard, had so mastered the squeezebox that he hit the road with another legendery elder in D.L. Menard. Within a handful of years, both empires were his, held spellbound under the power of “That Butt Thing” smash. So although plunging into hallowed works tagged with names spread from Adam Hebert and Beau Jocque to Professor Longhair and R&B man Toussaint McCall, Trahan’s no neo-traditionalist playing by the rules. He and his more zydeco-flavored Ossun Express motor their own way, adding heavy-metal thunder to a Cajun piece like “The Back Door” from the steel-on-steel scrape of Rodney Bernard’s armored chest plate. Even tricking out “Don’t Let the Green Grass Fool You” by transistorizing some of the vocals through a vocoder-esque talk box. Such is the people’s choice.
~Dennis Rozanski