BruceDaigrePont.com
Title
Bruce Daigrepont Home Page
Description
Bruce's CD's and cassettes are available at the Louisiana Music Factory in New Orleans' French Quarter. They have the largest selection of Louisiana music in the world and you can order by phone or over the Internet.
Bruce was born in New Orleans on July 11, 1958. His parents were part of a post-World War II migration of Cajuns to New Orleans from the rural farming communities of Avoyelles Parish. Located in the uppermost corner of Louisiana's "Cajun triangle," Avoyelles Parish is the forgotten part of Cajun country. Nevertheless, the language and customs of the Cajun people are as deeply rooted here as anywhere in the state. And whenever you walk through the door of Bruce's family home, you return to Avoyelles Parish. His parents have never abandoned their beautiful Cajun French, and they've kept their gumbo and fricassee simmering on the stove.
The same, instinctive pride of culture and heritage that has guided his parents' lives, and his grandparents' lives, is now invested in Bruce's music. Music came to Bruce at an early age, and in the most traditional manner--handed down from father to son. When he was growing up, no family gathering was complete without a little playing and singing. His father picked the guitar, "Carter Family-style," while his Uncle Alton lent a remarkable voice to the traditional Cajun songs and old-time country ballads. When Bruce turned five, his father presented him with a guitar, and by the age of ten he was also bearing down on a five-string banjo. It was in 1978, after attending the annual Festival Acadiens in Lafayette, that Bruce was inspired to devote himself to the French accordion. By 1980 he had his own Cajun band, and was honing his skills at regular Thursday-night fais do do dances at the Maple Leaf Bar. Over the next six years, Bruce Daigrepont almost single-handedly popularized Cajun music and Cajun dancing in cosmopolitan New Orleans.
