Milton Molitor with Austin Pitre- "Manuel Bar Waltz"

                                                        

In 1953 KVPI in Ville Platte signed on for the first time. New station manager, Chris Duplechain, was brought in to be the new general manager and French announcer. He hired a young Floyd Soileau to do the French news and commercials. 

Soon Chris encouraged Floyd to open up a record store in Ville Platte. Floyd saw the possibility and took 300 dollars to New Orleans and bought a 60 dollar phonograph and 200 dollars on records. 

He soon opened a record shop at the top on the Evangeline Bank building and started advertising his record shop on the radio. He balanced his time on the radio and selling records in his shop until one day he accidently put on a Christmas transcription in the middle of July so he could sell some records.

Chris told Floyd it was either the radio or the record shop. Floyd moved his record shop to a downstairs location on Main Street, then to a bigger location. He eventually hired some part time employees to watch the shop so he could continue to do the French news on KVPI. 

He noticed that his inventory of Cajun records were dwindling down. All of the other labels in the area were moving on to pop, country and blues. But Floyd's customers still wanted Cajun French records to buy. One day, a stroke of luck happened to Floyd.

Floyd had become friends with one of his customers, Ed Manuel. Ed owned the Manuel Jukebox Company and dealt with juke boxes, pinball machines and slot machines. One day he walked in Floyd's record shop. 

He told Floyd he wanted a new French record. He had a tape of Milton Molitor and Austin Pitre that was recorded at a local radio station. Floyd recalls:

"He asked, Can you have some records made of that?" "Yeah," I said. "I can have some records made. I know where to get them made." And he said, "Well, let's make some records." He asked, How much do you need?" and he pulled out a wad of bills from his pocket and he started flipping out the bills. "Tell me when you got enough." And I said, "That should be enough. I know a place in Nashville that I can get it done." Starday Records would hand out brochures along samples of Starday Records that they'd hand out to the area radio stations. And the brochures would say something like, 'If you got some talent in your area, and you can record them at a radio station, you can send the tape to us, and we'll have the records made for you. We have the connections with the pressing plant.' So, I remembered that and called Starday Records and asked if I could have a record pressed and they said "Fine, send us the label copy you want and send us the tape and we'll get you some records."

Floyd came up with the idea to call the record label Big Mamou Records since Ed owned a bar in Mamou and was established there. On the label he also wanted to put Floyd's Record Shop to remind people where they could get the record from. Although 78's were the popular speed at the time, 45 rpm's had just come out and the jukebox industry was pushing for 45's as well. Floyd ordered 300 of the 78's and 500 of the 45's with Manuel's investment. 

But Ed had some stipulations. One was that he wanted one of the sides called the "Manuel Bar Waltz". Ed owned a bar in Mamou and wanted some advertising for it. The other requirement was that Floyd had to promise not to sell the record to any other jukebox company for three weeks, as he wanted to be the first to have this new French record on his jukeboxes.

Milton Molitor and Austin Pitre's "Manuel Bar Waltz" was the A side to the new label. Milton was from Oakdale and had recorded with Chuck Guillory's in 1950. Austin had recorded for J.D. Miller in the early 1950's as well before this new record with Floyd and Ed. How exactly the tapes got from the band to Ed Manuel is unknown.

Hey chère regarde donc quoi toi t'as fait,

Mais aujourd'hui avec moi ma criminelle.

Hey bébé tu pourrais plus.

Hey t'aurais eu le coeur aussi criminelle.

Hey semaine en semaine, jour en jour ici,

J'ai jongler à toi criminelle que t'as tout le temps été.

Hey bébé tous les soirs quand je me couche,

Hey tout le temps de la nuit, je me capote de bord dans mon lit.

Hey je peux pas dormir moi pour moi.

Hey c'est juste rapport a tout ce que toi tu m'as fait.

After the record was out, other jukebox owners were reaching out to Floyd. They too, wanted this new record on their jukeboxes. But Floyd kept his word to Ed and didn't sell the record to anyone else for three weeks. As for the record, it sold well and soon word got around about Floyd Soileau putting out records in Ville Platte.

                                           

Session info:

MILTON MOLITOR WITH AUSTIN PITRE BAND

Milton Molitor (v/acdn), Austin Pitre (fdl), possibly Lurline LeJune (g), st-g, b

Mamou LA: 1957

BM 101A Manuel Bar waltz Big Mamou 101

BM 101B Midway two step Big Mamou 101

Resources:

Conversations with Floyd Soileau

Early Cajun Music Blog

Cajun Records 1946-1989 Nick Leigh