Still a Louisiana Man Kershaw remains king of fiddle-based cajun music

Doug Kershaw has well-rounded musical connections.

He’s performed with acts as diverse as Bob Dylan, Grand Funk Railroad and bluegrass legend Bill Monroe, and is a second cousin of current country star Sammy Kershaw.

But while all those acts have influenced a career spanning more than a half-century, Doug Kershaw has carved out a successful niche in the industry by remaining true to his unique brand of fiddle-based Cajun music.

“I thought I might have to get away from the traditional cultural music I grew up on, but it really didn’t turn out that way,” said Kershaw, who will perform at 7 p.m. Friday, Sept. 28, at The Forum in Presque Isle.

“I haven’t really steered my music in different directions, but I’ve added different elements as I’ve gone along: country swing, country-western, rock and roll, all kinds.”

The 65-year-old Kershaw started performing professionally in the 1940s in a family band while growing up in the heart of Cajun country – Tiel Ridge, Cameron Parish, Louisiana, an island just off the Atlantic coast in the Gulf of Mexico.

As it does today, Kershaw’s music then featured both English and French lyrics accentuated by guitars, fiddles, accordions and vocals. And while he is described as the king of Cajun fiddle players, Kershaw says he plays 29 different instruments “well enough to play on an album.”

Kershaw and his brother, Rusty, took their act national in the mid-1950s and soon earned commercial and critical acclaim with the 1961 release of their trademark single, the autobiographical “Louisiana Man.” That song blended Kershaw’s Cajun roots with the emerging country-rock licks of the times.

“I hadn’t played a fiddle in two years when I wrote that song because I just got out of the Army,” said Kershaw, nicknamed the “Ragin’ Cajun.”

“But I was lonely at the time, so I got out of my fiddle and wrote ‘Louisiana Man.’ It turned out to be a big rock ‘n’ roll tune. I didn’t plan it that way, but what I learned was it’s not the instrument, but how you play it. It’s not the song, but how people hear it.”

Kershaw soon began appearing on such national television programs as the inaugural episode of the “Johnny Cash Show,” a performance that set the stage for a long-term recording deal with Warner Brothers Records.

Today, Kershaw is a blend of all that he has lived. He recently released an all-French-language Cajun CD, and he currently is working on an English-language effort, “Doug Kershaw Singalong,” through his new London-based recording label, Cooking Vinyl.

And as he has shared his music with countless audiences throughout the nation, he also has been an ambassador for his Cajun heritage.

He expects his show to play particularly well in northern Maine, where the Acadian community is in some quarters as much a part of the local culture as the Cajun community is in his native southwest Louisiana.

Opening for Kershaw will be Don Cyr of Lille. Currently an instructor of art and history at the University of Maine at Presque Isle, Cyr performs Acadian step-dancing in wooden shoes, plays the spoons and tells stories of the Acadian culture in a French dialect.

Advance tickets for the Sept. 28 Doug Kershaw concert are $15 and are available at Pieces of Eight, Industrial Street One-Stop, The Forum and the Aroostook Centre Mall, all in Presque Isle; DoDo’s Market, Caribou; Bridgeside Pharmacy, Fort Fairfield; York’s Bookstore, Houlton; Community Pharmacy, Madawaska; and Ezzy’s Music Shop, Van Buren. Tickets at the door are $20.