As you drive the two-lane highway between Mamou and Ville Platte, you can still find Cajun music on the am radio. It’s part of the soul of the landscape of rice farms and cattle pastures that are the Cajun prairie.
Floyd Soileau opened his Ville Platte record store in 1956. He says it’s Louisiana’s oldest record shop that’s still run by the original owner.
“My late brother Kurt and I went to New Orleans, went on Baronne Street, met with the distributor over there. I came back with $250 worth of records and a $60 phonograph to play them on,” Soileau said.
Country was popular and Rock and Roll was brand new. There were very few Cajun artists making records. But many of Floyd’s customers were looking to buy regional music.
“That’s when I decided that if I had the chance I was going to start making records, and Cajun records were the first ones we started making,” he says.
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