Acadians are descendants of Canada's original French-speaking population. The Acadians originally settled in Nova Scotia in 1604 and lived in harmony with the Micmac natives, an unusual occurrence for European colonizers, but the deportation of 1755, known as the "Grand Dérangement," tore Acadians from their cherished land and, in many cases, from each other. Although many tried to return to their property, they were mostly relegated to less fertile territory along the coasts. L'Acadie isn't a place on the map but rather a state of collective consciousness. It's also a fractured and dispersed homeland, one that initially had to struggle to survive. But over the years Acadians worked hard to create infrastructures that would assure them a more solid footing. As for the many deportees who ended up in Louisiana, these people eventually came to be called Cajuns and were subject to influences that ultimately gave birth to a distinct and powerful new mode of musical expression, one that eventually found an audience far beyond its geographical base.
Acadian music, for its part, was not only less distinctive but there was no recording industry on hand to record it and promote it. A few folklorists became repositories of the oral tradition, the most prominent example being Father Anselme Chiasson from Cheticamp, Cape Breton. Unfortunately, the old songs and tales were mostly stored away in university archives. There was never an Acadian equivalent of Fairport Convention or La Bottine Souriante to validate this old material and spread it around the world.
Although Acadian singers started recording only in the mid-1970s, quite a few decades after their Cajun counterparts, several singers quickly made names for themselves. Edith Butler and Angèle Arsenault were the most important vocalists, and Beausoleil Broussard and 1755 the most popular groups. In the 1980s several factors helped make musical careers more viable, notably community radio stations and a regional distribution system that catered specifically to the genre. Unfortunately, it's still difficult to earn a living as a French-speaking singer in the region, and Québec seems to embrace Canadian Francophone singers from outside the province grudgingly. That's undoubtedly why such respected singers as Isabelle Roy, Lina Thériault and Marie-Jo Therio (all three from New Brunswick) moved to Montreal where one can more easily be integrated into the Québec musical community. The strategy has worked especially well for Therio, who has also become a well-known artist in France.
Because of the scattered nature of the Acadian community, musical influences vary from region to region. In Cape Breton, for example, the people were far removed from powerful media emanating from the U.S., so the neighboring Scottish influence remained strong. On the other hand, the two Acadian communities in Southwestern Nova Scotia had a musical template etched on their collective soul by the sounds of country, bluegrass and rock 'n' roll reverberating from powerful radio stations far beyond the Bay of Fundy. The municipality of Clare, which is in Southwestern Nova Scotia, has produced several musicians of note and in recent years a couple of bands have found varying degrees of international recognition well beyond their home community by forging distinct musical identities. Jacobus et Maleco is the first Acadian rap group while Blou draws on Louisiana for at least part of its eclectic sound. For its part, Grand Dérangement is gaining an international reputation by performing songs written by Michael Thibault, many of which offer eloquent insight into Acadian reality.
Some other noteworthy Acadian artists have emerged on the scene within the last 10 to 15 years or so. A few, such as Borlico and Barachois have been known for generating a lively kitchen-party atmosphere while Vishten (originally from Prince Edward Island, as was Barachois) demonstrates that Acadian and Celtic forms of music are very compatible. Suroît, a group from the Magdalen Islands, mixes traditional sounds with more modern arrangements while Felix and Formanger are an impressive accordion-guitar duo from the French region of Newfoundland. Some of the singer-songwriters from northern New Brunswick, on the other hand, tend to be more heavily influenced by the poetic style of songwriting one associates with Québec.
A few individuals, such as Roland Gauvin (ex-member of 1755 and Les Méchants Maquereaux, both very well-known and influential groups that are now defunct) and Ronald Bourgeois have made names for themselves as singer-songwriters and as leaders within the musical community. Bourgeois, for example, organizes an annual Acadian-Cajun event in Halifax called Le Grou Tyme. In 1994 members of the Acadian diaspora gathered at a large event called the Congrès Mondial, an event that takes place in differing regions every five years. As Cajuns and Acadians welcome each other as long-lost relatives, they are forging new bonds which are bound to give birth to mutual musical influences that will inevitably manifest themselves in interesting ways. -Paul-Emile Comeau
