Cajun music is a Louisiana hybrid, a blend of cultural influences with an identity which accordion maker and musician Marc Savoy of Eunice describes in culinary terms: "It's a blend of ingredients, like a gumbo in which different spices and flavors combine to make a new taste." Indeed, like Cajun cooking and culture in general, Cajun music blends elements of American Indian, Scots-Irish, Spanish, German, Anglo-American and Afro-Carribean musics with a rich stock of western French folk traditions.

Most of Louisiana's French population descends from the Acadians, the French colonists who began settling at Port Royal, Acadia in 1604. They ...