Jim Bradshaw: Hank Williams' 'Jambalaya' had roots in French music

Our comments several weeks ago about Hank Williams and his Cajun anthem "Jambalaya," brought a note from Keith Simon about his great grandfather Dosette Guidry, who may have played the first version long before Hank and his imitators knew what a jambalaya was.
You’ll remember that "Jambalaya’s" tune closely tracks the Louisiana French song "Grand Texas" that was recorded both in French and English by Poppa Cairo.
There are several stories about how "Jambalaya’s" lyrics came to be, several of them attributing the words to Moon Mullican, who performed with Hank on the Grand Ole Opry show and elsewhere.
Keith sends along a web posting by Dosette’s descendant, Martin Guidry, who suggests that the Guidry family “heavily influenced the best-known country hit of all time.”
Dosette and his brothers Arthur and Isidore, sons of Alcide Guidry and Marie Louise Hebert, were mostly tenant farmers, but for a brief time they performed as the Guidry Brothers, and were among the first groups to record Cajun music.
Their tie to "Jambalaya" comes from one of their recordings, Le Garcon Negligent.
According to a 2019 Teche News feature story on the Guidrys by Wade Falcon, the melody to "Le Garcon" “contains early familiar elements, similar to … Papa Cairo’s Grand Texas and even later, Hank Williams’ 'Jambalaya.' It may be the earliest appearance of this melody ever.”
According to Martin Guidry, “In 1952, Hank Williams became aware of the song 'Big Texas' and decided to record it; however, he spiced up the text with Cajun French words and used … a version Moon Mullican had written, but not copyrighted. Some disagreement exists about how Hank Williams got the words to 'Jambalaya (On the Bayou)' despite the general belief that it was Moon Mullican’s version. … The origin of the words … may be unclear; however, the source of the melody is very clear. It descends from the 1929 Guidry Brothers’ recording of 'Le Garcon Negligent.'"
The Guidry Brothers recorded six songs at that 1929 session, but apparently never set foot in a record studio again.
According to Falcon’s account, “Cajun music was getting a foothold in the recording industry; getting discovered outside of south Louisiana for the very first time.”
The Guidry brothers were among several Cajun musicians who went to New Orleans in October 1929 to record their music for the major recording label Vocalion Records and, Falcon says, “some of their melodies, the first to be found on commercial recordings, can be recognized as familiar tunes we hear today.”
“But as quickly as they were discovered, they faded away,” he writes. “The group headed home … and were not discovered for almost 90 years … for most people, their music and identities were almost lost to time.”
A collection of Jim Bradshaw’s columns, "Cajuns and Other Characters," is now available from Pelican Publishing. You can contact him at jimbradshaw4321@gmail.com or P.O. Box 1121, Washington LA 70589.