The History of the Acadian Accordion

The Acadian Accordion

In a new memoir, accordion-maker Marc Savoy chronicles the instrument's history in Cajun Country

By Jordan LaHaye Fontenot

The first time Marc Savoy heard an accordion’s sound, it was drifting across the fields of his grandfather’s farm on the Prairie Faquetiaque in Eunice. It sang, wonderfully, from the catalpa grove, where the tenant Hiram Courville lived. It would be months before the boy Savoy would see, in person, what sort of contraption made such an enchanting song: at Christmas, when Courville visited Savoy’s father’s new outdoor kitchen. In his recently-released memoir, the storied Louisiana accordion-maker writes of the experience:

“That night was sheer heaven for me—Wade Frugé and Maxime Rozas on fiddles playing with Hiram on accordion. Wow! I sat next to them the whole night and didn’t take my eyes off of them … fireworks were going off in my heart and in my head because I was in the presence of those three simple, wonderful old guys. I was hooked for life.”

Made in Louisiana: The Story of the Acadian Accordion (2021, UL Press) chronicles the evolution of the Louisiana-made accordion from the perspective of the instrument’s most historically-significant craftsman. Inextricably linked to the history of Cajun music, Savoy’s life story is presented as an homage to the heritage of French Louisiana in its purest form—which survives perhaps most remarkably through its music.

The German Accordion in Acadiana

That first accordion Savoy laid his eyes on, Hiram Courville’s, was a German-made Hohner. At Courville’s suggestion, Savoy’s father Joel purchased the same model instrument for his son the following year. Savoy writes:

“By this time, at age twelve, I could whistle every one of Hiram’s tunes by heart. I had watched him play so many times that I knew I could play that accordion. I opened up the bellows, listened to the sound of each button, and played “J’ai Passé Devant Ta Porte”.

During that time, in the early 1950s, the accordion was still a relatively new instrument to Cajun and Creole music. Now considered a treasured centerpiece of many bands within those genres, the squeezebox—whose origins can be traced back to Southeast Asia over one thousand years ago— first appeared significantly in the South Louisiana folk repertoire as recently as the early twentieth century.

The version of the accordion that we recognize today—with its vibrating reeds, its bellows, and its keyboard—emerged to an enthusiastic response throughout Europe in the mid-nineteenth century. Though the intricate and beautifully-designed French brands made their way to Louisiana first as popular novelties sold in New Orleans shops—the cheaper, more durable and simply-made diatonic button accordions from Germany caught up quickly, and were soon found in general stores all across the state. Savoy notes on the Savoy Music Store website that the rural farming communities where these accordions were most popular were the same areas in which German immigrants settled. “Besides introducing the accordion in the Louisiana prairies, [the Germans] are also credited by many with introducing rice farming to Louisiana,” he writes. “This may be disputed, but one factor remains undisputed— wherever you find rice farming, you will also find Cajun music with the accordion.”

By the time Savoy started playing in the 1950s, most of the existing accordions in Cajun country were German-made, and they were old. After World War II, with most of the German factories in ruins or behind the Iron Curtain, the only new accordions making their way through the South Louisiana music scene were Hohners like Courville’s and Savoy’s. Hohners were less popular than the iconic Monarch and Sterling brands, referred to as “‘tit noirs” and generally the preferred choice of Cajun musicians throughout the early-to-mid twentieth century, even after their factories were lost to the war. (Courville, however, preferred the Hohners—which responded more immediately to his quick and complicated riffs than the older accordions.)

The expense of the instrument, combined with the rarity of replacement parts, meant that musicians were tasked with keeping their accordions play-able for decades, and were repairing them on their own. (In the book, Savoy memorably describes mending a broken spring with a safety pin, a remedy rumored to be used by Amédé Ardoin as well.) As Savoy puts it:

“In rural Louisiana in the 1940s and 1950s, many of the accordion players still possessed the same accordion that as youngsters they had worked so hard to earn. The accordion became a cherished possession, only surpassed by the tractor … The accordion represented joy in their lives, and the tractor made it possible to have more time to pursue this joy.”

Photos by Ann Savoy, courtesy of UL Press

A New Style of Cajun Music

Cajun music—identified for over a century as the lively fiddle-centric music carried to Louisiana by the exiled Acadians—couldn’t accommodate the diatonic accordion at all until the early twentieth century, when German manufacturers started producing accordions in the keys of C and D, allowing fiddlers and accordionists to play in unison for the first time.

“These changes ushered in a new style, one where accordion and fiddle played melodies in unison, with the fiddle sometimes soaring an octave above the accordion or dropping to bow a chordal accompaniment below,” writes accordion historian Jared Snyder in the introduction to Made in Louisiana. “The steady left-hand accordion accompaniment provided a rhythm that only varied for the type of dance: waltz, two-step, one-step, polka, etc.” This early, classic style of musicianship is exemplified in the music of icons Dennis McGee and Amédé Ardoin.

Savoy credits the rapid immersion of the accordion into the Cajun and Creole canons first to its practicality: it was very loud, didn’t need to be tuned every time it was played, and it was more durable in the face of Louisiana’s humidity and shifting temperatures than most other instruments. “These advantages quickly caused the accordion to gain popularity to the point where accordion players out numbered fiddle players,” he writes. Secondly, he notes the significance of the first recordings of Cajun music coinciding with the accordion’s introduction. The first “legitimization” of the genre included the accordion, and the resulting flood of repertoire to incorporate the instrument followed suite.

The Savoy Music Center

Twenty years after Savoy heard Courville’s accordion from across his grandfather’s fields, he sat down in a living room in Mamou with Dennis McGee. By then, he’d become a master himself, and as he played his own handmade instrument, another child watched, wide-eyed, and listened. It was the first time Steve Riley had heard an accordion. “And I’ve loved the instrument, and the sound, and everything about it ever since,” Riley said.

Like Savoy, Riley—who is today acknowledged as one of the best accordion players of his generation—started playing on a German-made Hohner. Showing early signs of prodigy, when he was fourteen his parents invested in one of Marc Savoy’s handmade Acadian brand accordions. Thirty-eight years later, it’s still the main accordion Riley plays on. “And it’s probably the best-sounding accordion I have,” he said.

Today, Savoy cites over twenty-three Cajun accordion makers in operation. But in the 1950s, there was only one: Sidney Brown. In his introduction, Snyder credits Brown with keeping the Cajun sound alive during those years of accordion scarcity, “by keeping the older accordions playable and providing new accordions that played smoother and with a better tone than anything else available.” Brown’s instruments were beautifully-cobbled Frankensteins of accordions, drawn together from the parts of defunct instruments from around the region and new Hohners.

Savoy was seventeen when he first came across a Brown accordion. “For a normal human being to build an accordion from scratch was totally impossible—or so I thought!” He writes, “I don’t remember sleeping at all that night, and during this long sleepless night, I decided to build an accordion also.”

Photos by Ann Savoy, courtesy of UL Press

The first accordion Savoy built (or, “something that looked like an accordion,” as he describes) he lit on fire in the barbecue pit. His second, he used to play at house dances. And his third and fourth, he sold. Word got around that Marc Savoy was making accordions, and he developed a firm customer base, working from the local cabinet shop on Saturday mornings, and then later from his father’s outdoor kitchen, the same place he first heard the sound of an accordion as a child. When he got good, he was making exact copies of the Monarch and Sterling models using Hohner reeds, bellows, buttons, and stops. When he got better, he started seeking out ways to push his accordions beyond the capabilities of the ‘tit noir—improving upon keyboard action, comfort, construction technique, and appearance. Challenging the rigid expectations of the local Cajun musicians, Savoy even started using Italian reeds instead of German—marking one of his first significant departures from the traditional, regionally-preferred style of accordion.

In 1965 Savoy found himself facing a crossroads in his musical career—which he feared was pushing him farther from his dream to promote Cajun culture, and instead towards performance. His little accordion-making business was prospering, and his father was asking for his outdoor kitchen back.

Recognizing the area’s still-limited access to instruments, parts, and supplies—Savoy opened The Savoy Music Center in Eunice on November 19, 1966. The store, still open over fifty years later, continues to service Cajun musicians and their fans with instruments, tools, records, books, and other merchandise. The heart of Savoy’s business, though, is still in his hand-made Acadian brand accordions.

Over the past sixty-four years, Savoy has never stopped trying to make the perfect accordion. Constantly in a state of experimentation, his life’s work has been refining and challenging the bounds of the instrument that so enchanted him in Hiram Courville’s hands. “I always begin my day with the attitude that nothing is ever good enough,” Savoy writes. “I will keep this attitude in focus until the day comes when I won’t show up for work anymore.” Over the decades, his work has been a continuous process of augmenting the mechanics, searching for the best quality materials, making the process more efficient and the instrument more durable. He’s journeyed to far away countries to meet other makers, and— now a master himself, he continues to closely watch the way his fellow musicians wield their instruments.

“They’re the Rolls Royce of Cajun accordions,” said Riley. “His craftsmanship is second to none. He’s always trying to improve the instrument, and what sets him apart is the way he tunes it. There are four reeds for every note, and he has a way of tuning those reeds together that no one else has that way of tuning. He tempers those four reeds … his accordions just really scream and are really responsive.”

Photos by Ann Savoy, courtesy of UL Press

Towards the end of Made in Louisiana— which in addition to Louisiana’s accordion history includes Savoy’s keen observations on the trajectory of Cajun music and culture as a whole—Savoy notes that the German-style accordion is no longer in demand in Germany. “The popularity of this accordion in Louisiana has become such that the old name ‘German-style’ has now become internationally known as ‘Cajun-style’. Cajun accordions today are regularly shipped back to Germany not for the purpose of playing German folk music, but rather to supply German musicians who are interested in playing Cajun music.”

Coming totally full circle, in 2020, Savoy received an email from Hohner—asking if he would help to design a student model accordion, as well as a professional model Cajun accordion, in his style, for their line. “It’s been a long time coming,” Savoy writes.

Photos by Ann Savoy, courtesy of UL Press

Marc Savoy continues to sell his Acadian accordions from the Savoy Music Center in Eunice, where he also hosts the historic Cajun Jam every Saturday morning—a tradition that has brought the region’s finest Cajun musicians and their protégés together for over fifty years.

savoymusiccenter.com.