Commercial Recordings Collection

The Center for Louisiana Studies Archive began roughly at the same time as Center itself, serving as a repository for the founder's personal fieldwork and research materials as well as items donated by the public for presevation. In addition to one of a kind fieldwork materials, another type of items collected and deposited into the CLS Archive were commercially released recordings. Beginning in 1928, recordings of Cajun and Creole music were released by large national labels (Columbia, Paramount, Victor, Bluebird, Vocalion, etc.), followed by a boom in regional labels (Swallow, Goldband, Khoury, La Louisianne, etc.) and numerous small personal labels that combined released thousands of commercial recordings. The Commercial Recording Collection is ever growing and serves as a research reference to musicians and scholars alike.

Label of the first Cajun commercial recording- Joe Falcon and Cleoma Breaux Falcon (uncredited) in 1928

Explore the collection - Please note that links to media files can only be accessed at the Center for Louisiana Studies physical offices