COVID-19 Hits Hard For South Louisiana's Cajun Musicians

Musicians—who depend on live audiences as much as they do—have been especially hard hit by the pandemic. Perhaps nowhere has this been felt more acutely than in South Louisiana where music lies at the heart of Cajun culture.

They still gather on Saturday mornings at Marc Savoy's music store in the town of Eunice, amid the rice fields and crawfish farms in what's called Cajun prairie country. Musicians pull chairs into a circle—outside now because of the virus—to play the French Acadian ballads they learned from their grandparents.

But the jam sessions have been diminished since four aged musicians—two fiddlers, a guitarist and a harmonica player—succumbed to COVID-19.

"I was almost on the verge of cancelling the jam session because it's not the same ambience, it's not the same spirit anymore since these old-timers are gone," says Marc Savoy, one of the patriarchs of Cajun music. At 80 years old, he is still building accordions, playing them, and hosting the jams.