“Grandfather’s Waltz” connects several generations of Cajun musicians, and a number of versions of the song show up in the archives of the Center for Louisiana Studies. According to Balfa, the song came from the playing of his grandfather, and he learned it from his fathers and brothers. 

 

Ralph Rinzler recorded the Balfa Brothers playing “La Valse du défunt grand-père”—the waltz of the late grandfather—in Basile on October 18, 1965 (RI1-023, with a better-sounding duplicate at RI1-064), and in Mamou on October 24, 1965 (RI1-081). Dewey Balfa also performed the song with Ambrose Thibodeaux and Revon Reed at the University of Chicago Folk Festival on January 29, 1967 (UC1-072).

 

In the Tracy Schwarz collection, Balfa’s instructional master tapes preserve both a lesson featuring the tune and a fiddle-and-guitar rendition (SC1-003, SC1-004).

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Later recordings show the waltz passing into younger musicians’ repertoires. Courtney Granger and Burke Balfa performed it at the Liberty Theater in Eunice on August 2, 1997 (LI2-517). A recording from the Escoheag Cajun and Bluegrass Festival in Rhode Island captures Steve Riley and the Mamou Playboys playing it with guest fiddlers Kevin Wimmer and Tracy Schwarz (WE1-092).

 

Another version features Courtney Granger, Kevin Wimmer, Dirk Powell, and Chas Justus at Artmosphere in Lafayette (KL4-003). In Dry Bones, Steve Riley, Peter Schwarz, and Burke Riley continue this exchange between generations.

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FURTHER READING
 

Ancelet, Barry Jean. “Dewey Balfa: A Cultural Ambassador.” Louisiana Life, September–October 1981, 78–85.

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Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. “Dewey Balfa: Master of Cajun Music.”

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National Endowment for the Arts. “Dewey Balfa.” National Heritage Fellowships, 1982.

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Fontenot, Kevin. “Dewey Balfa.” 64 Parishes. Updated January 17, 2024.

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Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. “Dewey Balfa.”​

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RELEVANT DISCOGRAPHY
 

The Balfa Brothers and Nathan Abshire. The 1970 NYC Concert. Field Recorders’ Collective, FRC111.

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Balfa, Dewey, and Tracy Schwarz. Traditional Cajun Fiddle: Instruction. Folkways Records, 1976.

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Balfa, Dewey. Cajun Fiddle: Old and New. Folkways Records, 1977.

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Balfa Toujours. Deux Voyages. Rounder Records, 1996.

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Balfa, Dewey, Marc Savoy, and D. L. Menard. Under a Green Oak Tree. Arhoolie Records, 1989.​

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