The Center for Cultural and Eco-Tourism and the Archives of Cajun and Creole Folklore at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette announces its sixth annual Archive Aid event, a benefit for the Archives of Cajun and Creole Folklore, on Saturday, May 23 at the Blue Moon Saloon located at 215 E. Convent St. Doors will open at 3:00 pm. Admission is $10, and the first 100 attendees will receive a CD of musical selections assembled directly from the Archives of Cajun and Creole Folklore.

This year’s performers include Balfa Toujours, T-Salé, Joe Hall and the Louisiana Cane Cutters, Corey Porche et Ses Amis, Ginger Lee, David Greely, Kristi Guillory, Drew Landry and Becca Begnaud, and Yvette Landry. There will be intimate performances featured on the front porch stage as well as the larger performances on the back porch stage. Performers at Archive Aid are mainly artists who have benefited directly from the use of the Archives – musicians who have recorded obscure songs found in the collections and reintroduced them into the vibrant current body of South Louisiana music.

For anyone interested in sampling the Archives’ contents, there will be listening stations connected to the Archives collection set up inside the Blue Moon Guesthouse.

Each year, the Archives organize this benefit to raise the funds necessary for the adequate preservation, management, and presentation of these delicate materials – ensuring that they remain intact for the future and are made increasingly accessible to musicians, scholars, and the general public. We look forward to seeing you there in support of our local cultural heritage.

The Archives, housed on the third floor of Edith Garland Dupré Library on the campus of UL Lafayette, constitutes the premier collection relating to the oral history and folklore of Cajun and Creole culture and Francophone culture in Louisiana in general. Among other collections, the Archives house the Louisiana-related field recordings of key scholars of Louisiana culture, such as Barry Jean Ancelet, Carl Brasseaux, John Laudun, John and Alan Lomax, Harry Oster, Helena Putnam, Ralph Rinzler, Corinne Saucier and many others.