Luderin Darbone and Edwin Duhon

Edwin Duhon, who hailed from the South Louisiana oil town of Hackberry, played both guitar and accordion, though later in his career he focused exclusively on the latter instrument. Luderin Darbone, a fiddler, spent part of his youth in East Texas, where he acquired a taste for country music to complement the Cajun sounds of his native South Louisiana. Duhon and Darbone formed the Hackberry Ramblers in 1933, and the band went on to become one of the most innovative and long-lasting in American popular music.

The group became popular playing for dancers in Louisiana and Texas and in 1935 began recording more than 100 tunes on 78-rpm records for RCA’s Bluebird label. The Ramblers made the first recording of “Jolie Blonde,” which became known as the “Cajun national anthem.” They incorporated Western swing and other sounds into the Cajun repertoire and introduced amplification to the roadhouses they played, initially powering a Sears sound system off Darbone’s Model T Ford.  Many of the English-language records identified them as the Riverside Ramblers.

In the early 1960s, the band made its first vinyl long-playing record for the Arhoolie label owned by Californian Chris Strachwitz, who encouraged the Ramblers to stay active and re-released some of their older material.  They continued to perform at home and on the road, becoming regulars at the New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival. They played in Europe and on the Grand Ole Opry and were featured on MTV. The band was featured in J’etais au bal (“I Went to the Dance”), an award-winning 1991 documentary by Strachwitz and Les Blank.

The Ramblers’ 1997 Grammy-nominated recording Deep Water featured guest appearances by country singers Rodney Crowell and Jimmie Dale Gilmore and singer-pianist Marcia Ball, whose parents had once booked the Ramblers for dances in her hometown of Vinton, Louisiana. The material on that disc ranged as far afield as “Frankie and Johnny” and “Proud Mary.”

"Edwin was a tough, tough old guy," band member Ben Sandmel said after Duhon died in March 2006. "He played as recently as November in Baton Rouge, even though he was playing in a wheelchair and it was difficult for him to go." Darbone told a reporter, "Edwin was like a brother to me, We were very close, although we had different personalities." Darbone's last performance, too, was just months before his death, in 2008.