In addition to a crammed, 37-band line-up spread over three stages and two days, this year’s Festivals Acadiens also commemorated the CD release of Festival de Musique Acadienne ’81 Live. The two-disc set is a reissue of sorts: disc one contains the original, 12-track Swallow Records LP in its entirety. Disc two features a staggering 21 bonus tracks of live 1981 Festivals Acadiens performances from those same artists and was culled from hours of tape stored in the University of Louisiana at Lafayette’s Archives of Cajun and Creole Folklore.

Overall, the two-disc set provides a well-woven tapestry of what Cajun-Creole music was like during the first year of the Reagan administration. There was still ample opportunity to witness fiery, foot-stomping performances from the roots of Cajun music with fiddlers Dennis McGee and Sady Courville as well as old-time Creole accordionist Freeman Fontenot, a contemporary of legend Amédé Ardoin.

Also showcased are the great dance hall bands of the day that have since faded from view. The Dixie Ramblers featured a young, exuberant Marc Boudreaux, a pile driving accordionist who was an Octa Clark protégé. Twenty-three-year old Ricky Bearb and his Cajun Ramblers delivered a novel rendition of “Flammes d’Enfer” in which Albert Miller’s mighty drum rolls led into abrupt, yet infectious stops. Despite a loose beat and rustic feel, The Ardoin Brothers Band was incredibly tight with its more modern form of Creole music. Zydeco’s John Delafose borrowed riffs from Cajun songs to create zydeco tunes that rocked in his own inimitable, country zydeco style.

By 1981, the Cajun renaissance was also in full swing. Zachary Richard fused traditional Cajun music with rock and attitude. BeauSoleil rocked as well (“Zydeco Gris Gris”) but also offered a haunting, folkier side (“Travailler, c’est trop dur”) and demonstrated how it could sizzle dancehall style (“Mamou Two-Step”).

The festival’s most unusual performer was Jocelyn Bérubé, a traditional Quebecois accordionist/fiddler who symbolically bridged Acadiana to French Canada. Similarly, Festivals Acadiens Live 81 bridges modern times to an era that can never be revisited, unless it’s through personal memories or recordings like these.