Doug Kershaw

Decades after Warner Bros., and a handful of other labels, tried to make Doug Kershaw a star by selling his “crazy Cajun” (read: unreliable madman) shtick to the same folks who were buying Waylon and Willie and Kris and Johnny C., the 66-year-old “Louisiana Man” is still working a closed circuit that grows smaller by the year. Figures, though, since the kids have no idea who he is and their folks have forgotten; something about an ex-boozer fiddle player with mutton chops that sort of keeps audiences at bay. It’s a shame, too, since few come with his cred or rep: hit singles in the ’50s and ’60s (including “Louisiana Man,” which you’d know if you heard it), a long-running slot on the Louisiana Hayride when Elvis was in blue suede shoes, a shot on the first Johnny Cash Show, stints opening for the Plastic Ono Band and Derek & the Dominos, gigs playing with Hank Jr. and Bobby Zimmerman and Quincy Jones, a discography as estimable as any survivor-journeyman-superstar who went into music to avoid going into Daddy’s gator-farming business. The rock’s long gone from his recording output–the new one’s titled Easy, because that’s how it goes down–but the music’s still far from trad-and-true; he’s no museum piece fiddlin’ dem Plexiglas blues.