C/D: Doug Kershaw

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Now here's a guy that's been forgotten by time. Well, not quite - I Googled this Louisiana artist some time back (pre-Katrina), and like other former country stars, apparently he's doing well in Branson. But this is a guy who defied all categories. Doug Kershaw was this Cajun country fiddler who got his start in an early-sixties duo with his brother Rusty (as "Rusty & Doug"). Their big hit, on Hickory Records, was "Louisiana Man," but the majority of their stuff sounded like a bayou Everly Brothers (because of their youth, the fifties rock & roll explosion affected them too and they made some good rockabilly singles here & there).

But he was more famous for his 70's solo career. He's one of those cats where, if he were still in his prime today, he'd be marketed as alt-country and the hipsters would love him. I don't have the Billboard country chart book on hand right now, but as best as I can tell his popularity in that field was modest. He was slightly bigger as a rock act - he had long hair when most male country singers (and some females!) didn't; he recorded for Warner Bros. back when they were still known for rock cult heroes like Frank Zappa and Ry Cooder; he had a flamboyant stage presence and a high energy level. And it was probably because of those things that he went over so well at rock clubs and fests during the hippie era. It's like he was approaching the Waylon & Willie outlaw-country-rock thing from another angle. And he was promoting Cajun culture long before it became hip. Along with the fact that he was on television constantly (his act was pretty visual), you'd think he'd have been a superstar of Waylon & Willie magnitude, but it apparently didn't go that way.

What started me on this 6 AM tangent? Just picked up a couple of his old Warners albums yesterday. Even though he never became a megahit, SOMEBODY must have been buying his shit 'cause his records always turn up in used bins for a dollar. From what little I've heard, his stuff can be seriously hit or miss, but when he HITS, he's on his game.

Since ILX has had threads about acts more obscure than Kershaw, what's the verdict? Is he a Dud that deserves his dollar-bin status, or does he have more Classics than you'd think?

Sorry for the long ass-intro, but I figure a guy this marginal needs some kind of bio...

― Rev. Hoodoo (Rev. Hoodoo), Saturday, 19 August 2006 10:04 (nineteen years ago)

i haev one song of his on my itunes, and i really like it, i want more info, so thanks for this!

diggy diggy low, thats the song! its great, rollicking, almsot rockabilly, and it rolls with a consumate ease.

― anthony easton (anthony), Saturday, 19 August 2006 17:44 (nineteen years ago)

i have a 45 by the country cousins called *dang dang* that i fuckin' love and it's kershaw-related. i dunno if he plays or sings on it, but i think he wrote it. maybe it's him under another name? great cajun/pop/weirdo novelty tune with awesome bass and drums. it almost sounds like some weird jamaican/calypso novelty tune.

― scott seward (scott seward), Saturday, 19 August 2006 18:32 (nineteen years ago)

Well, I just got through listening to one of the albums I bought yesterday. It's from 1972 and is titled DEVIL'S ELBOW. Things start getting lame on side two, but side one is classic from start to finish! They really knew which songs to sequence first...

Other Kershaw albums I own (not counting a Rusty & Doug reissue LP): THE CAJUN WAY (with "Diggy Diggy Lo"; this is the other Kershaw LP I bought yesterday, haven't played it yet); RAGIN' CAJUN (this mid-seventies album is supposed to be his best, according to early editions of THE ROLLING STONE RECORD GUIDE, but it's just as uneven as the LP I was talking about in the first paragraph of this post...but the good moments are REAL good). I also have the soundtrack to this WOODSTOCK-ripoff concert movie called MEDICINE BALL CARAVAN, from '71; Kershaw is on it, as is Alice Cooper and B.B. King, but all three of them sound like they're having an off-day.

Just noticed this morning while listening to DEVIL'S ELBOW: the man had a recurring habit of writing songs with lyrics that don't rhyme, or rhyme badly. He could never cut it as a rapper...

― Rev. Hoodoo (Rev. Hoodoo), Saturday, 19 August 2006 19:33 (nineteen years ago)

I suspect that he'd have fared better in later days when Cajun music was more excepted as music rather than backwoods something-or-other as much non-coffee house roots music was treated (at least by big label recording support) As such, I would guess (and it's just that...) that the producers of the day were trying to make whatevr he did "sellable" somehow and likely ended up splitting the difference in a not-so-favourable way.

If you have never seen clips of him, you can see him in a small role as a Fiddler (go figure...) in a rather apalling 1971 film called Zacariah ("The first electric western"...) Not much to bother with other than a drum solo by Elvin Jones (as a drumming gun fighter...) and seeing Doug Kershaw lurch around weirdly and fiddling and singing a bit... May not be worth the pain of sitting thru the rest of the dross unless your pissed. but...

Ah, the joys of geezerdom...

― Bass-man (bassguy), Sunday, 20 August 2006 01:47 (nineteen years ago)

...and the odd part about it is, he sorta faded from the scene right when Cajun music was starting to be accepted on its' own terms. But he musta had some kind of following 'cause Warners always seemed to keep one or two of his albums in print. I distinctly remember that not only did one Chicago store have a Doug Kershaw section as late as 1989, but they filed him under "blues" (this was when Louisiana music was really starting to catch on, so maybe they thought he was a white zydeco guy?).

He was definitely ten years too early with bringing Cajun music to the masses. He woulda been another C.C. Adcock if the times were right.

― Rev. Hoodoo (Rev. Hoodoo), Sunday, 20 August 2006 03:47 (nineteen years ago)

Get the Doug & Rusty 2CD on Ace (UK) - and see what all the fuss it about (their 50's & 60's Hickory label sides) - don't forget Wiley Barkdull!

― So Ho La (So Ho La), Tuesday, 22 August 2006 23:16 (nineteen years ago)

I actually have a Rusty & Doug compilation (I said so in an earlier post). It's not the one that So Ho La mentioned, it's a vinyl comp that Hickory put out in the seventies to cash in on Doug's semi-fame (LOUISIANA MAN, credited to Rusty & Doug Kershaw). It's a good album - Doug himself wrote the liner notes, where he talks about recording his first record (and naturally, the song he mentions by name doesn't appear on this particular LP).

Wiley Barkdull was the cat that sang bass on R&D's songs, right? Does this compilation you mention have "Rattlesnake?" This is Rusty & Doug doing balls-out horndog rockabilly, and Barkdull is getting in some good licks - the bass singers from the NY doo-wop scene had nothing on Barkdull.

I don't have it, but in the 70's Hickory put out this other cash-in compilation, a sprawling two-record set that was credited to Doug Kershaw only, even though all the songs were duets with his brother. Has hysterical liner notes where Doug is reminiscing fondly about being breast-fed as an infant! (He was raised on "sugar tit," as he called it...)

Okay, by now I've heard CAJUN WAY...my position that he made uneven albums still stands, but when he hits the bullseye, he's up there with the best. I'll be looking for more used Kershaw when I get the time.

(Wish I could say good things about brother Rusty's 1970 album on Cotillion, but I ain't feelin' it. Maybe a relisten is in order, since I've been on such a Doug Kershaw kick these days.)

― Rev. Hoodoo (Rev. Hoodoo), Wednesday, 23 August 2006 02:48 (nineteen years ago)

one year passes...

Can't believe you don't like Rusty's solo album, Hoodoo. I think it's fantastic! It's called Cajun in The Blues Country or something like that. Any Sir Douglas fan oughta buy this TODAY.

Did you know he played slide guitar and fiddle on On The Beach, too?

― If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport, Thursday, 29 May 2008 16:04 (seventeen years ago)

eight years pass...

the man had a recurring habit of writing songs with lyrics that don't rhyme, or rhyme badly.

According to Wikipedia he didn't learn to speak English until he was 8, wonder if that had anything to do with it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH2ppLxTHAY

― Aw naw, no' Annoni oan an' aw noo (Tom D.), Monday, 1 August 2016 13:01 (nine years ago)

Belated thanks to Scott for the rec on "Dang Dang." This oddball mid-last-century pop is my kinda catnip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=poN_Zr2B0FQ

― this is a salad for the BALSAMIC REVIVAL (Dan Peterson), Monday, 1 August 2016 14:22 (nine years ago)

Although research is showing The Cousins were not Cajun, but Belgian! And Doug and Rusty wrote the flip side, "Hey Mae," but not "Dang Dang."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCabWdqIZlM

― this is a salad for the BALSAMIC REVIVAL (Dan Peterson), Monday, 1 August 2016 14:58 (nine years ago)

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