Papa Cairo and his Boys

Born Jules Angelle Lamparez, the steel guitarist who would come to be known as Papa Cairo was a unique player on the steel guitar in Cajun music as well as the vocalist featured on fiddler Chuck Guillory's 1949 hit single "Big Texas. Since Cairo's instrument was less in demand in Cajun music than the fiddle or accordion, he also branched into steel-happy institutions such as Western swing and country, appearing for a time as a sideman to Texas honky tonker Ernest Tubb. Cairo practically lived on the stages of dancehalls and saloons in the '40s and '50s, when artists such as Gu...