D.L. Menard: Waltz Across the World

In the span of two minutes, both D.L. Menard's cell phone and home phone ring. Fielding a call from his girlfriend and another from a friend who has aluminum cans for him to sell, he handles both with his loud, yet charming, larger-than-life voice before ending the calls just as quickly as the phone rang.

Pressing a button to end the conversation on his cordless, in a moment unusually absent of his normal exclaim and enthusiasm, a stone-faced Menard says, "I'm gonna stop being popular."

"After this year, that's it, I'm gonna not be popular anymore," he says flinging his arms like an umpire welcoming a safe runner into a base. Then Menard's voice begins to pick up, returning to his normal jovial fashion announcing, "I'm too much in demand," before finally erupting into his cackling laughter.

Shaking his popularity would be a task, as Menard is a seminal figure in South Louisiana music and Cajun culture. For decades, Menard played South Louisiana's dancehalls and festivals, drawing the nickname The Cajun Hank Williams for his high nasal sound. He's met President Bill Clinton, been honored with a National Heritage Fellowship Award, been nominated for a Grammy and toured the United States and the world -- visiting 36 countries and 44 states. Still, in his hometown of Erath -- where tour buses come the weekend of Jazz Fest to visit his house -- he keeps a low profile, remaining in his home of many years, driving an old truck and living a simple, though busied, life.

Approaching his 74th birthday (April 14), he laughs that he's thinking about starting work again so he will not be as busy. Every day, Menard goes on a 40-minute walk because his doctor recommend it for heart attack survivors. Catching up with the on-demand Menard is a daunting task. He's constantly on the run, bopping from one errand to the next. If he says he'll be at his house one afternoon, he might run late, out checking his blood or dropping off vintage western wear for the Old Tyme Country show at the Liberty Theater.

"I say I'm retired. I'm collecting my Social Security, that's it. I never stop. I'm always doing something. I'm always gone. I work like hell. I run all day long."

Sometimes he's out in Scott where his girlfriend lives. They met at church four years ago after both lost their spouses within a month of each other. His lady is about three years his junior and stays just as busy, driving escort vehicles for wide-load transports.

Along with his resolution to not be popular, Menard looks to make 2006 the year his chair factory is finally up and running. During the past 11 years since it burned-- claiming the wood-framed machines he designed as well as the building -- he has slowly made his way to building chairs again. Today, it's nearing completion. The actual factory is finished, but it is filled with his son's furniture displaced by Hurricane Rita. To begin production he needs to build a storage building to hold the chairs when they are completed.

Talking about the factory, he exclaims "Son of a gun," the phrase sounding very similar to that of his hero, Hank Williams. Frustrated by a man who was scheduled to come and construct the shed starting last summer, Menard, itching to build a chair for the first time in 11 years, says he guesses he will build it himself.

"I enjoyed music, but I always did love to work with wood. When I played music I would go on tour sometimes for 10, 12, 14, 17 days. I'd get away from the shop. Coming back, I was ready to go into that shop. It was like a vacation. I was ready to get back to work. When I'd leave, I was ready to leave to go play my music. To me, it was as much one as the other. That's how I always felt about it. "

Though they met only briefly a lifetime ago, probably speaking for 10 minutes, Menard speaks of meeting Hank Williams as if it happened yesterday. Williams was Menard's idol (he joined his first band to sing Williams' songs). Today, Menard cherishes an autographed picture -- peculiarly singed in pencil -- as one of his prized possessions.

"Can you believe that? There's not too many that got that, no?" says Menard.

During a 1951 appearance at New Iberia's Teche Club, where other Grand Ole Opry stars were known to perform, Williams gave him pointers that helped shape his career and life. Pearls of wisdom fell from Williams' mouth to a young Menard -- 19 at the time -- who didn't quite grasp them until he began traveling the world.

"He said, 'Remember the one that's going to be laughing at you today, don't worry about that. Tomorrow you might be better than them,'" recalls Menard. "The next day I grabbed my guitar, checked myself out. I said, 'I'm not better today than I was yesterday.' To me, that is what he was telling me."

Probably the most important pieces of advice Williams passed on were to write about everyday life and sing from the heart. At the time, Menard thought to himself, "I sing a song with a mouth, me."

On stage, Menard says you'd swear Williams was actually crying, later advising Menard to think about it happening to himself.

"Put your heart in the song and pretend it's happening to you, and it's gonna come out on that record," Menard recalls the legend saying.

At that point, Menard was still a year away from joining the Louisiana Aces. He had only been playing guitar for about three years, first learning the instrument at 16. At 17, he played his first paying gig at the Palombo Night Club in Abbeville. He played weekly gigs just as a hobby for nearly 10 years with the group. Like so many hard-working young men of the day and their Cajun music ancestors, the music was a pastime for the day of hard work.

Along with Cajun music, he sang country, as he says Cajun had died out and to get by, a band had to perform songs from the more-popular genre they referred to as hillbilly.

"A Cajun band that could not play country and western was almost not considered a band. You had to be able to play country and western."

During these years, Menard toiled as a farmer and at odd jobs. For a very short time, he worked at a junkyard before being hired at a service station. In those days, a job at a service station meant more than just pumping gas. He checked motorists' oil, fixed tires and performed other auto chores. It was here between pumps and window washing that Menard scribbled the words to The Back Door (La Porte D'en Arrier) onto a notepad.

"I knew what I was gonna write. I had it in my mind, but I couldn't write it all at once. So I would write a little bit, a car would pull up, I'd put my pad in my pocket and go serve the car, Jack!"

Initially, Menard was reluctant about song writing. His uncle, who played fiddle in the band, prodded him along, and Menard overcame his timid ways.

"My uncle was the type of guy, he could tell you what to do, but he couldn't do it, him. But he could tell you, and most of the time the son of a gun was right. He told me one time how to write a song: He say, 'You know how that guy write a song? You have this and that ...'" Menard illustrates his uncle making it seem so simple. "The following Wednesday, he come, I said, 'You wanna hear a song?' I sang it to him. It was I Can't Forget You, the flipside of The Backdoor."

The Aces continued to play in local clubs, always keeping within a 35-mile radius so they wouldn't get home too late. Whenever Menard asked his kids if they wanted to hear a song, it was always The Back Door they requested. Around this time, his uncle started bringing up recording at what seemed like every one of their weekly Wednesday practices. Menard didn't share the sentiment, and they went back and forth for three weeks -- at every practice his uncle pining to record The Louisiana Aces Special just to hear how it would sound and Menard begging off. Finally, Menard agreed. In July 1961, The Aces cut the record. According to Menard, the record sold fairly well. The next year, in July, The Aces would record The Back Door as a treat for his children.

"I record that song just so my kids could have a souvenir of that song and hey yeah yi!" Menard exclaims, to this day The Back Door exceeding his expectations.

The Back Door came out on a Tuesday. The same day, his late wife Lou Ella heard it playing on the radio. At the next day's practice, Menard heard it for the first time, playing on a Gramophone. That Saturday, The Aces played at Jolly Rogers Club (later immortalized by an Aces' song) between St. Martinville and New Iberia. When the band set up on the stage, The Back Door could be heard playing on the club's jukebox.

"I felt like a million dollars ... to hear my song on the jukebox, brother," says Menard.

The Back Door played constantly, continuing even after they set up and headed to the bar for a beer. The owner told the Aces that when he opened to clean up at 7:30 that morning, people came in and started playing the song. It didn't stop all day, he said, and he couldn't stand to hear it anymore. That night, D.L. Menard & The Louisiana Aces had to play The Back Door seven times.

As crowds came in, the new patrons demanded an encore performance of the song. Eventually, Menard got so tired of taking requests, he pretended to adjust his equipment in between songs. Undeterred, the crowd asked the accordion player Nolan Badeaux to play it again. "So I had to sing it anyway," says Menard.

The Back Door was on its way to becoming a local hit. The song, about a boozing man who has to sneak in the back door as to not alert his wife to his inebriation, fit with Williams' pointers.

"He said most people do something every day. They don't pay no mind all their life. They don't pay no mind to what they doing, they just do it. He said you put that in a song ... and it's gonna make a hit."

Still, The Aces remained grounded, gigging only locally and never venturing out of South Louisiana. Toward the end of the 1960s, Menard switched jobs and went to work at a chair factory on the other side of Delcambre. For three years he learned his craft before starting his chair factory next to his Erath house. It would operate for 25 years, gaining acclaim for his handiwork, before the blaze.

Eventually, The Aces disbanded and Menard concentrated on his factory. But in 1973, a representative from the National Folk Festival at Wolftrap Farm in Vienna, Va., came down to Louisiana. Everywhere he went, he heard one song playing on the radio.

Stopping in to visit Marc Savoy, he asked about the song he thought was brand new. To his surprise, the song was the then 11-year-old Back Door. Savoy gave him Menard's number, and when he returned to Washington, D.C., he placed a call to Erath.

When he answered the phone and was told the caller was in Washington, Menard honestly replied "Oh, I know where that's at -- that's out of Opelousas."

Although The Aces didn't play together anymore, they gladly accepted the invitation to play the festival. Menard protested for a while because he was not ready to get on a plane and he had no idea what a folk festival was or what it would do for his career. But he eventually agreed to travel with the band.

The National Folk Festival marked the launch of his career outside of Louisiana. In the years that followed -- though his biggest hit The Back Door cooled off on the radio compared to its initial reception -- Menard hit his stride. Two state department tours and innumerable festivals later, Menard has seen the world, thanks to The Back Door.

"It came a time when I hated that song so much it was pitiful," says Menard. "I told my wife, 'I'm sorry I wrote that song.' She said, 'D.L., that's what made you.' But then after I started (traveling) I really liked that song," he says with a sly laugh. "That song brought me to 44 states repeatedly ... and 36 countries, so that little Back Door was very good to me. Oh, ho ho ho, because that was an experience that I never dreamed that I would have got except for that Cajun music."

As he says, Menard is still in demand, rebuffing offers to fly to Denmark to play a festival there last year. The long flights are too much for him; when on his last international jaunt -- book-ending a very short rest in Erath with trips to China and Europe -- he thought he'd never get home. Locally, he indulges audiences in a few special performances here and there: a Festivals Acadiens set in the fall, the Erath Fourth of July celebration in the summer.

Chances are, he is often not far from his beloved Erath. If he is away, he's sure to soon be on his way back home.

"Oh, I would never move away. This is where I was born, this is where I'm gonna die. I was never ashamed of saying where I was from. I'm from Erath, very small town 20 miles below Lafayette, Jack. That's how I tell them and I was never ashamed of my town, I was never ashamed of what I was."

Nick Pittman is entertainment editor of The Times. To comment on this article, e-mail timesedit@timesofacadiana.com.