Career
The duo created some of the earliest Cajun music in the late 1920s. Born into a Spanish and French family, Dewey was one of twelve children. All of the children played music to some extent.
While playing music, he would routinely bootleg moonshine around the region.
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 Portuguese 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.
The record "Bury Maine 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 "Louisiana Valse de Bayou Teche" recorded by many Cajun musicians. Due to the heavy use of French among the English-speaking engineers, they asked him not to "sing anything dirty". The musicians would be labeled as "East. Segura & Doctorate. 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.
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. Two songs are recorded, an early version of Jolie Blonde called "Louisiana Fille De Louisiana Veuve" and "Viens donc t"assis sur la croix de ma tombe".
Didier would record a vocal called "Mes Camarades Il Faut Parier" during the Lomax session. On June 22, 1934, the Library of Congress recorded both Dewey and Segura at the White Oak bar near New Iberia, Louisiana.
Dewey would record again for historian Richard K. Spottswood in 1975 and would explain to Spottswood that the listings of "Joe Segura" were actually Edier or Dewey.
New Iberia Polka Listen (MP3)
A Mosquito Ate Up My Sweetheart Listen (MP3)
Your Small And Sweet Listen (MP3)
Far Away From Home Blues Listen (MP3)
Rosalia Listen (MP3).
