Louisiana Aces Master the Down-Home Sound

Rhythm guitarist/deadpan vocalist D. L. Menard & the Louisiana Aces (accordionist Blackie Forestier and fiddler Dick Richard) have been playing mainstream Cajun music--waltzes and two-steps sung in pidgin French--since 1952. Throw in a couple of Hank Williams classics (the only selections sung “in American”) and you’ve got the first of two hourlong sets that the trio performed at McCabe’s on Saturday night.

Along with the sort of tight ensemble work you might expect from three guys who might easily be mistaken for a cowboy, a fillin’ station owner and a stockbroker, Menard and company wove a homespun, self-deprecating humor into the ‘tween-song narratives.

One leaves with the feeling that these guys think it’s wonderful we all bring ‘em out here to play the music of their ancestors, but they think we’re all idiots for not living back home in South Louisiana where they do this every night at the local watering hole.