Joseph A."Cabri" Menier was born on January 22nd, 1933, to parents of predominantly French descendants Hubert and Elta Prudomme Menier from the farming community of L'anse Maigre near the town of Mamou, Louisiana, along with two sisters: Mary Pearl Holden and Carol Miller, along with one brother, John Riley Menier. Years later the family moved a few miles south to the town of Eunice where Cabri's father Hubert started a trucking business with a 18 wheel tractor-trailer, hauling everything from lumber to equipment. They family was involved in the business but it was not a passion of the young Cabri. What was an early passion of his was singing. He was known to develop a great singing voice and had an extraordinary gift of remembering any song, according to his longtime friend and bandmate Eston Bellow. As a teen in the late 1940's , a school mate and close friend by the name of Harry Lafleur approached him with the idea of playing music together. Harry played the fiddle and wanted Cabri to join him and Eston, who played the guitar. Harry encouraged Cabri to also learn to play the guitar but Cabri didn't have enough money, so Harry bought him one. Eventually the three would practice together and started out playing at local house dances. Eston would move over to the drums while Cabri took over the guitar duties. In 1949, Harry felt they were good enough to play their first dancehall gig and recruited veteran accordion player Amar "T-Frere" Devillier to play at the Courtableau Inn, infamously referred to as " The Bloody Bucket", because of the amount of fights and knife skirmishes. The band called themselves Harry and the Louisiana Aces and had a great debut, getting paid $12.50, which led to more gigs. That same year Eston, who had a job at the local Ford dealership, would buy himself his first car and would taxi the younger bandmates Cabri and Harry back and forth to Port Barre. In 1950/51, Cabri (guitar), Eston (drums) along with Wallace LaFleur on vocals, Dennis McGee (fiddle) and Isom Fontenot (harmonica) recorded with Amar Devillier at KEUN studio in Eunice. The band under the name Amar Devillier and the Louisiana Jambileers, recorded two songs under the Khourey Record label out of Lake Charles, "Durald Two Step and Shoe Pick Waltz. Things were really taken off for the band until an unfortunate auto accident injured Amar, which put his playing career on hold for several years. Not long after, Cabri learned the steel guitar and went on for a spell to play with Lawrence Walker, but the two didn't mesh very well so Cabri would again join his pals Harry and Eston to play at different gigs. Eston recalls a story where they were playing at the Beer Garden off Hwy 13 in Eunice one night and located not to far down the road was KEUN radio station. During the dance Cabri kept picking up the station's radio signal loud and clear through his amplifier. They never could resolve the issue so he had to unplug and get an acoustic to finish out. Another story told by Eston was when the band was playing at a club in Kinder and it was raining extremely hard outside. Somehow a huge puddle of water made its way indoors onto the floor where an electric fan was plugged in and running. The fan caught on fire and smoke chased everyone out of the building. The band refused to leave their instruments and had to hustle to get out with them in time. In 1958, Cabri, Harry, and Eston were recruited to play and record for accordion player Austin Pitre and the Evangeline Playboys. The band would record several albums for Floyd Soileau on his Swallow record label and play with Austin for several years. Over Cabri's career he played with many notable musicians such as : Iry Lejuene, Nonc Allie Young, Blackie Forestier, Jerry Devillier, Don Fontenot, JC Labbie, Jason Frey, as well as those mentioned previously. His recording of La Valse D' Opelousas is part of a compilation album called Various Cajun-The Post War Years Vol. 2. Along with Ray Landry and Gina Forsyth, Cabri is also credited with singing lead vocals on several of Nonc Allie Young and the Basile Cajun Band's songs on the album titled Two Steppin with Nonc Allie. Cabri was employed through the years as a parts manager at Ford, Saddler Supply and another parts house. He was also able to use his playing and voice to supplement his income. He continued to play throughout his life until his death on September 4th, 2013. Cabri in my opinion is one of the many unsung heroes of Cajun music and deserves more recognition for his contribution. Special thanks to all who contributed to this story including Eston Bellow, Jerry Devillier, The Evangeline News Today archives, Archive files of Cajun, Creole, and Zydeco Muscisians, and Find a Grave.com. *Dedicated to the daughters of Cabri, Janet and Karen. Composed by Neal P Granger
