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"Comment ça va?" His speaking voice is as rich as his singing voice. We waited in silence for the tape recorder so the official interview could begin. Shyly, he offered me a cigarette. "Thank you, I don't smoke." "Well, don't mind me, chère, I'm just an old country boy. And we're simple folk down here. We just want you to feel at home. Let your hair hang down. I mean, whatever you wanna do is alright with me." He seemed self-conscious at the prospect of being interviewed. With the microphone pointed in his direction he began to speak of his background. He grew up the son of a farmer and trapper near the small town of Cut Off, which lies about sixty miles southwest of New Orleans. Vin heard very little accordion music as a child. He could recall only one man who played the Cajun accordion and of him Vin simply said, "Ernest Cherami used to play the accordion, but not like the people from out west. It wasn't like that around here." Vin's grandmother was a musician and his brother played the fiddle but Vin learned his trade listening to his father. "I started by singing French songs. I used to watch my daddy playing fiddle and I caught the guitar and played a little -- I caught a few notes, but I'm no musician, now." He was excessively modest, almost to the point of denying his own achievements. |
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LYRICS and TRANSLATION |
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With the advent of rock and roll his popularity dwindled and his Columbia contract ran out. He spoke without bitterness of this downward turn in his career. Vin played locally for a long time until he could no longer support himself by singing. He started to roughneck on the offshore oil rigs. For some years after he was dropped by Columbia. Vin recorded on the Swallow label. His last album was released by la Louisianne, a small company in Lafayette. Now he has his own recording facilities in a posh suburb of Thibodaux where the district attorney, who is a close friend of Vin's, converted a big red barn into an eight track studio. Vin Bruce is never very far from home. "I've only been known around so many parts," he reflected. His personal appearances extend almost exclusively over southeastern Louisiana. He rarely travels as far north as Lafayette. But his brand of country song is known to many people outside this region. |
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copyright 1974 and 1999 |
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