Jean Duet "Dewey" Segura (February 12, 1902 – November 15, 1987) was an American folk musician. He and his brother Edier Segura (sometimes spelled "Eddie") formed the duo known as the "Segura Brothers" (also listed as "Segura Bros"). The duo created some of the earliest commercially recorded Cajun music in the late 1920s.[3]
Family
Born into a Spanish and French family, Dewey was one of twelve children. All of the children played music to some extent.[4] While playing music, he would routinely bootleg moonshine around the region. He married Euphemie Desormeaux.[5][6]
Music and career
After the success of Joe Falcon and Cleoma Breaux's record "Allons a Lafayette", Columbia began recording Cajun music; beginning their new series of "Arcadian French" records (40500-F series for Columbia, 90000 series for Okeh). Dewey read in a newspaper on his way to Port Arthur, Texas, during a whiskey run, that recording companies were recording Cajun music in New Orleans. A relative that connections at Columbia helped get Dewey on the end-of-year schedule.[7] On December 16, 1928, Dewey, with his accordion and his brother Eddie on vocals and fiddle, recorded two records for Columbia in New Orleans. The record "Bury Me in a Corner of the Yard" was Columbia's first in their series of "Acadian French" music. The B-side song "My Sweetheart Run Away" was mislabeled (due to confusion between Dewey and the recording engineers) and would later become the song "La Valse de Bayou Teche" recorded by many Cajun musicians.
Later, on December 9, 1929, his brother Eddie, along with Didier Hebert on guitar and Dewey on accordion and vocals, would record three more songs. Due to the heavy use of French among the English-speaking engineers, they asked him not to "sing anything dirty".[8] The musicians would be labeled as "E. Segura & D. Herbert" on the records. Didier Hebert, a blind guitarist from Louisiana, accompanied them on the three songs and recorded a solo song, "I Woke Up One Morning in May", during the same session.[9]
The duo would later record for Alan Lomax, compiled as "folk" field recordings and would be the only Cajun pioneers to do so from the early period.[10][11] Two songs are recorded, an early version of Jolie Blonde called "La Fille De La Veuve"[12] and "Viens donc t'assis sur la croix de ma tombe".[13] Didier would record a vocal called "Mes Camarades Il Faut Parier" during the Lomax session.[14]
^Dronet, Curney J. (2001). "A Century of Acadian Culture: The Development of a Cajun Community A: Erath (1899–1999)". Pelican Publishing. p. 51. ISBN978-1589800045.
^Brasseaux, Ryan Andre (2009). "Cajun Breakdown: The Emergence of an American-Made Music". Oxford University Press. p. 69. ISBN978-0195343069.
^Ethnic recordings in America: a neglected heritage. American Folklife Center, Library of Congress. 1982.
^Brasseaux, Ryan Andre. "Cajun Breakdown: The Emergence of an American-Made Music". Oxford University Press (June 4, 2009). p70.
^Caffery, Joshua Clegg (2013). Traditional Music in Coastal Louisiana: The 1934 Lomax Recordings. Louisiana State University Press. p. 169. ISBN978-0807152010.
^Caffery, Joshua Clegg (2013). Traditional Music in Coastal Louisiana: The 1934 Lomax Recordings. Louisiana State University Press. p. 6. ISBN978-0807152010.
^Cajun waltz / Segura Band(sound recording). The Library of Congress. American Folklife Center. Traditional Music and Spoken Word Catalog: Lomax, John Avery.