The Ann Savoy Cajun Interviews Collection

The Arhoolie Foundation is excited to announce the newest addition to our archives, the Ann Savoy Cajun Interviews Collection.

Over the past 44 years Ann Savoy has been interviewing Cajun musicians throughout southwest Louisiana. This collection is rare and special, as many of the artists she interviewed are no longer with us. To hear them tell their stories in their own voices is a journey to a world that no longer exists, a glimpse into Cajun history. 

A Cajun musician herself, Ann Savoy is uniquely positioned to compile this incredible archive, and saw the Arhoolie Foundation as the collection’s natural home. She recorded for Arhoolie Records for 40 years. She also contributed album notes and photographs for various Arhoolie Cajun music LPs and CDs. Chris Strachwitz has been a close friend of the Savoy family for decades, and Ann has enormous love and respect for the work Chris and Arhoolie have achieved over the years. It was, in fact, an Arhoolie Old Timey LP of Cajun 78 records that got her interested in Cajun music in the first place!

Arhoolie Foundation executive director Adam Machado recognizes the immense and singular importance of this project: “The Ann Savoy Cajun Interview Collection is a monumental achievement and contribution to the preservation of Cajun music history. We are longtime fans and dear friends with Ann and the Savoy family, and are honored to be the home of this archive.”

The Collection consists of over 200 recorded interviews, some in Cajun French. The Arhoolie Foundation provided a grant for its digital preservation, and is progressively adding the interviews here in streaming audio as a compliment to Ann’s seminal books: Cajun Music: A Reflection of a People Volumes 1 and 2, from Bluebird Press. The books contain text transcriptions of the interviews along with rare photographs, artist biographies, and more.

 

 

 

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