Chuck Guillory

Cajun fiddler Chuck Guillory entered the world on August 16, 1919, in Mamou, Louisiana. From an early age he joined his father for regular fiddle duets at a neighborhood bar on Saturday afternoons. His debut at a country dance occurred when he turned eight, and by the time he reached ten he had assembled his initial band, which drew steady local crowds in the years leading up to World War II.

Once the war ended, Guillory cut his first sides with accordionist Milton Molitor and soon launched the Cajun ensemble known as the Rhythm Boys. One of its earliest vocalists was a young George Jones, then based in Beaumont, Texas. Guitarist Jimmy Newman and steel guitarist Julius “Papa Cairo” Lamperez later joined the lineup; in 1949 the group recorded its initial tracks, among them Lamperez’s composition “Just Wait and See.” Lamperez later asserted that the song supplied the unrecognized foundation for Marty Robbins’s “Pretty Words,” a claim made all the more pointed because Robbins himself had briefly been a Rhythm Boy.

Around 1950 the band achieved its first regional success with “Big Texas,” on which Papa Cairo sang the lead. Lamperez promptly assembled his own outfit to re-record the number under his own name. Guillory kept performing for several more years before withdrawing from the dancehall scene in 1958 to operate a grocery store, though he still appeared at private gatherings from time to time. One such evening was documented by folklorist Dr. Henry Oster; the version of “Grand Texas” captured that night appeared on the album Folksongs of the Louisiana Acadians and gradually became an underground favorite.

In the late 1980s Guillory reassembled the Rhythm Boys to play dances once more and to record for the Arhoolie label; the 1987 sessions were later compiled on the 1998 release Grand Texas.