Nathan Abshire

Nathan Abshire infused Cajun music with blues and honky-tonk elements while reviving widespread interest in the accordion through his output in the 1950s and 1960s, yet he never earned a livelihood solely from performing. Born June 23, 1913, in Gueyden, Louisiana, he turned professional during the 1920s and made his first recordings in the early 1930s alongside Happy Fats & His Rayne-Bo Ramblers. Around the same period he took a job at the town dump in Basile, Louisiana, which he kept for nearly his entire working life.

By 1936 his prospects appeared promising when the Rayne-Bo Ramblers accompanied him on releases for Bluebird. Following his service in World War II, he cut “Pine Grove Blues” for D.T. Records, a track that became his best-known single and eventual signature song. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s he issued further sides on Khoury/Lyric, Swallow, and Kajun while continuing to perform at local dances and contributing to sessions by the Balfa Brothers.

Revived enthusiasm for Cajun and folk music in the 1970s allowed Abshire to appear at multiple festivals and colleges, and he featured prominently in the 1975 PBS documentary Good Times Are Killing Me. The title later seemed ironic, as he struggled with alcoholism in his final years. Additional recordings for Folkways and La Louisienne appeared in the late 1970s, but he died on May 13, 1981.