Career
As a child, Delafose fashioned fiddles and guitars out of old boards and cigar boxes fitted with window-screen wire. He eventually took up the harmonica, and at the age of 18 learned the button accordion. However, he soon turned to farming, and did not pursue music as a career until the early 1970s.
He began serving as an accordionist and harpist with a variety of local Zydeco bands.
Delafose began his career playing in the fais do-do of his area, a Cajun dance party. Later he gained public recognition with albums like Joe Pete Got Two Women (Arhoolie) and Blues Stay Away from Maine (Rounder).
In the mid-1970s he formed the band The Eunice Playboys, with which he played until his death in 1994. John Delafose is buried at Saint Mathilda Cemetery in Eunice, Saint Landry Parish, Louisiana, United States.