Accordion Dreams: A Journey into Cajun and Creole Music [Hardcover]

Blair Kilpatrick (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2009

By age thirty-nine, Blair Kilpatrick had settled into life as a practicing psychologist, wife, and mother. Then a chance encounter in New Orleans turned her world upside down. She returned home to Chicago with unlikely new passions for Cajun music and its defining instrument, the accordion. Captivated by recurring dreams of playing the Cajun accordion, she set out to master it. Yet she was not a musician, was too self-conscious to dance, and didn't even sing in the shower.

Kilpatrick's obsession took her from Chicago's Cajun dance scene to a folk music camp in West Virginia, back and forth to south Louisiana, and even to a Cajun festival in France. An unexpected family move brought her to the San Francisco Bay Area, home to the largest Cajun-zydeco music scene outside the Gulf Coast. There she became a protégé of renowned accordionist Danny Poullard, a Louisiana-born Creole and the guiding spirit of the local Louisiana French music community.

Engaging, uplifting, and illuminating a unique patch of the American cultural landscape, Accordion Dreams is Kilpatrick's account of the possibility of passion, risk-taking, and change--at any age.

Blair Kilpatrick has an independent practice in psychotherapy in the San Francisco Bay Area. She also performs and records with Sauce Piquante, a traditional Cajun-Creole band she founded in the late 1990s. Learn more at www.blairkilpatrick.com

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Blair Kilpatrick's Accordion Dreams: A Journey into Cajun and Creole Music makes an important contribution to Louisiana Cajun and zydeco music and culture. Blair represents many working people who make music for serious fun. Accordion Dreams will resonate with anyone who has ever taken on the task of getting past their fears in order to learn a new skill, especially later in life. It is a detailed guidebook for those who have been standing on the edge of the dance floor waiting for a solid partner to lead them through the Cajun Two Step and into the culture. She deftly reveals the history of the music and its lineage of musicians in a simple, no-nonsense style of writing. Connoisseurs of folk music all over the world should have this book in their libraries."
—Anne Galjour, author of Hurricane and Mauvais Temps

"A lyrical, deeply felt, and beautifully rendered memoir of a mid-life love affair with Cajun music that ultimately transforms a psychologist's life, while enriching those of its readers."
—Doreen Orion, author of Queen of the Road

"Kilpatrick's passion for Cajun and Creole music and culture, and her efforts to nurture it in places like Chicago and Berkeley, make me realize how much I take for granted living in south Louisiana. Her book is a great compliment to the Cajun and Creole people, and it provides a rare glimpse into the lives of those who play Cajun and Creole music even while residing far from the music's semitropical homeland."
—Shane K. Bernard, author of Swamp Pop: Cajun and Creole Rhythm and Blues and The Cajuns: Americanization of a People

From the Publisher

By age thirty-nine, Blair Kilpatrick had settled into life as a practicing psychologist, wife, and mother. Then a chance encounter in New Orleans turned her world upside down. She returned home to Chicago with unlikely new passions for Cajun music and its defining instrument, the accordion. Captivated by recurring dreams of playing the Cajun accordion, she set out to master it. Yet she was not a musician, was too self-conscious to dance, and didn't even sing in the shower.

Kilpatrick's obsession took her from Chicago's Cajun dance scene to a folk music camp in West Virginia, back and forth to south Louisiana, and even to a Cajun festival in France. An unexpected family move brought her to the San Francisco Bay Area, home to the largest Cajun-zydeco music scene outside the Gulf Coast. There she became a protégé of renowned accordionist Danny Poullard, a Louisiana-born Creole and the guiding spirit of the local Louisiana French music community.

Engaging, uplifting, and illuminating a unique patch of the American cultural landscape, Accordion Dreams is Kilpatrick's account of the possibility of passion, risk-taking, and change--at any age.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Mississippi (January 1, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 160473101X
• ISBN-13: 978-1604731019
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,222,297 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am a psychologist, the accordionist for Cajun-Creole band Sauce Piquante, and a writer. ACCORDION DREAMS: A Journey into Cajun and Creole Music (University Press of Mississippi, 2009) tells the story of my life-changing passion for Louisiana's joyous music. Please visit my website to learn more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Heartfelt, Revealing, Engaging and Lovingly Written, April 10, 2009

By 

glenmichael "glenmichael" (Italy) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Accordion Dreams: A Journey into Cajun and Creole Music (Hardcover)

For anyone unfamiliar with Cajun or Creole music, Blair Kilpatrick's autobiographical journey into the world of Cajun-Creole music via the diatonic accordion begs the question : why should something so anecdotal possibly appeal to a wider public, going beyond restricted circles of Cajun Creole music and accordion fanatics ?

Maybe because this shared personal and heartfelt autobiographical account may help reveal better how we the readers relate to and act upon our own passions and limitations : musical or otherwise. It helped me do just that.

The author ( a practicing professional psychologist ) details stages of fascination with the music, learning of the instrument, fear of public performance, and the knowledge, skills and insights gained from her mentor and acceptance into the Cajun Creole music community, and much more.

I found it thoroughly entertaining, engaging and extremely well-written. The quality of writing is impressive and is in itself worth the hardcover price.

I would have given it 5 stars, but feel perhaps the amount of detail given to the mentor's declining health and eventual passing gave the book a slight imbalance and sense of impending doom towards the end, though he is an extremely important part of understanding the whole process she had gone through.

Overall, a beautifully written and beautifully produced book, with a lovely dose of feminine charm and valuable insights into Cajun Music and Culture. Anyone who loves quality writing, roots music, hot food, accordions and community based music are sure to enjoy it.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great read!, March 12, 2009

By 

Sally Reese - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

I loved this book! I initially opened Accordion Dreams: A Journey Into Cajun and Creole Music with the expectation of being mildly entertained while learning about a genre of music with which I was wholly unfamiliar. I was surprised when I found my reading stretching into the early morning hours, a measure of the author's skilled writing and the interesting subject matter.

I heartily recommend Accordion Dreams for anyone who has felt & dismissed a nascent, seemingly peripheral interest; this book will encourage you to pick up your accordion and play and dance.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cajun-Creole Music Spectator, October 7, 2009

By 

Cajun-Creole Music Spectator "Kristi G." (Lafayette, LA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Accordion Dreams: A Journey into Cajun and Creole Music (Hardcover)

Blair Kilpatrick's honest, touching and at-times comical memoir describing her foray into the Cajun and Creole music world as an adult is as lyrical and moving as the two-steps and waltzes she learned to sing throughout her journey. A self-described shy Midwesterner, Blair was turned on to Cajun music after a brief visit to New Orleans in the 1990s. Beyond the bright gaudy lights of Bourbon Street, she was drawn, like many, to the subtle sounds of the fiddle and the rhythmic groan of the accordion during an unexpected Swamp Tour. Blair began to frequent Acadiana on subsequent trips to Louisiana and delved deeper and deeper into the music that almost immediately moved her. She describes this experience as if she were instantly smitten and punch-drunk on Cajun sounds. Her story takes on mythical proportions as she meets her elder guide in Papa Joe, portends her future in dreams of playing the accordion, falls into the belly of the whale of self-doubt, finds an archetypal mentor in Danny Poullard and emerges from the dark swamp of self-doubt with an epic story to tell marked with gems of wisdom (Music is the child of your heart) and inspiration. She writes, "Cajun Music seemed to echo the very things I was feeling: sadness, loneliness, a desire to cry out in frustration and anger...You begin to feel lighter because the pain inside you has been drawn out, an now other voices, stronger voices, are helping you speak it."

Perhaps Blair's story is archetypical. Many players who have grown up outside the Cajun and Creole culture and were called to venture "inside" of it are among the strongest heroes and spokespersons (Anne Savoy, Charlie and Lynne Terr, Tracy Schwartz, Dirk Powell, Kevin Wimmer). They learn a deep appreciation for the music and the intense processes of learning with all the inherent joys and struggles. They begin their journeys as students and, always with a passionate nod to learning, become heroes and mentors to students of their own.

As part of the vibrant Cajun and Creole music scene of the San Francisco Bay Area, Blair finds community, family, love and a safe and comforting place to push her own boundaries, to let go and loose herself in the "rhythm lock".

[...]