Book Doug Kershaw

Doug Kershaw is the Louisiana fiddler, singer and songwriter known as the Ragin' Cajun, whose autobiographical "Louisiana Man" carried Cajun music to a national audience. Born in 1936 and raised amid Cajun fiddle and accordion music, he formed the Continental Playboys in 1948 with his brothers Rusty and Nelson "Peewee" Kershaw, after teaching Rusty to play guitar. When Peewee left in the early 1950s, the brothers continued as the duo Rusty and Doug, appearing on the Louisiana Hayride radio broadcast in Shreveport and the WWVA Jamboree in Wheeling, West Virginia. Encouraged by producer J. D. Miller to add English songs to their French repertoire, they recorded their first single, "So Lovely, Baby," in 1955, and it reached number 14 on the country chart. "Louisiana Man" and "Diggy Liggy Lo" followed in the early 1960s. Kershaw's solo career took off after a 1969 appearance on the debut episode of The Johnny Cash Show, leading to albums including The Cajun Way (1969), Spanish Moss (1970), Ragin' Cajun (1976) and The Louisiana Man (1978), and singles on the Hot Country Songs chart. He was inducted into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame in 2009.